Beat It

When you raise, or know people who raise chickens, you sometimes (frequently, even) find yourself in the position of having an abundance of eggs. You may also, if this happens a lot, be sick of quiche, egg salad, and scrambled eggs. This was where I found myself recently, and so I started asking everyone I knew if they had any favorite ways to deal with tons of eggs.

My grandmother, who grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York and remembers a life without electricity or indoor plumbing, provided the most helpful response for my lifestyle: pound cake. With a recipe taking four or five eggs per loaf pan, it burns through eggs quickly, and it also freezes well. She cuts her cooled cake into individual portions and then freezes them for later use. A little pound cake, some fresh fruit, some whipped cream, and voilà, easy dessert!

To the best of my knowledge, I had never made pound cake before. Maybe once, twenty-five years ago, for 4-H, but not more recently than that. So I didn't really know what to expect, either with the preparation or the result. I picked the older of my go-to cookbooks, a monster of a tome from the 1960s, since pound cake is a fairly old-fashioned thing, and followed the directions, using my stand mixer.

After it was in the oven, I checked my other go-to cookbook, and realized my mistake. The secret to good pound cake is: beat it. Beat it to within an inch of its life. The wet ingredients should have so much air beaten into them that you worry they'll float away, because between two sticks of butter and two cups of flour in that one little loaf, it's going to be a solid brick if you don't.

So my first attempt came out a little... dense. Still quite tasty, but decidedly solid. I vowed to try again, new knowledge in hand, and see if I couldn't do better. My second attempt is currently in the oven, having been beaten like crazy with my hand mixer, and it's already got considerably more loft than its predecessor.

If at first you don't succeed, find more reference material and try, try again!