Any-Flavor Pound Cake
The alterhuman community is wonderful and diverse -- full of people, human and nonhuman, whose experiences show the splendor of the world. It's not possible to boil all of that down into one cake, but it got me thinking about how many of us chase some memory, food-related or otherwise.
So I created this pound cake recipe to be easily modified and easy to make. If you're a hummingbird and you remember a life enjoying sweet flowers, you can make this as a lavender pound cake. If you're a bear and you miss sweet berries in the spring, this could easily be a blackberry-flavor pound cake.
Experimenting in cooking is super fun -- and a wonderful way to connect with the past.
Tip: Rice flour browns more than wheat flour, so the cake may look overdone compared to what you're used to. But it lends an excellent texture!
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups white rice flour
1 cup sugar
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature or they won't mix correctly
1/4 cup flavored coffee or cocktail syrup, such as Torani, Monin, or grenadine; or sub molasses. You can find different drink syrups in the coffee aisle and in the drinks aisle at most groceries, or order online. The sample cake above uses Monin Brown Butter Toffee syrup.
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 eggs, ideally room temperature
1/2 tsp flavored extract, such as vanilla, lemon, or orange. The sample above uses imitation vanilla because I'm a cheapass.
Equipment:
Oven
4x8 loaf tin (you can use a different sized baking tin, but it will affect baking time)
Mixing bowl and spatula, or stand mixer (it's easier with a stand mixer, but doable if you put some muscle in.)
Serves: 8-12, depending on how much you like
Prep Time: 15 minutes with a stand mixer; more like 20-25 without
Cook time: 45-55 minutes
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Add rice flour, baking soda, and baking powder to a mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer. Whisk together to mix evenly.
Add butter, eggs, and flavoring extract. Mix on a medium-low speed until a fully incorporated, thick batter forms if using a stand mixer, about a minute. Beat by hand until the same thing happens. If you're beating by hand and having trouble, it may help to put the whole mixing bowl in the microwave for about 20 seconds -- if your eggs were cold, they may be chilling the butter down and making it harder to mix.
Add sugar and flavoring syrup and mix evenly into the batter.
Generously grease your baking tin, especially if it's not nonstick. You can use the wrapper from the butter sticks to do this.
Pour batter into baking tin. Bake for 45-55 minutes. Check doneness with a toothpick or knife -- if it comes out clean, it's ready; otherwise, give it another 5-10 minutes and check again until it comes out clean.