Pound Cake

Rose Dodds from Bel Air was searching for a recipe for a cake similar to one that she enjoyed at a party. She said the texture was similar to poundcake and the almond flavor reminded her of Italian amaretti cookies. Patricia Waxman from Chapel Hill, N.C., sent in a recipe she had seen in Southern Living magazine for an amaretto-almond poundcake that she thought might be similar to the one Dodds was looking for. She thinks it is the best poundcake she has ever made: "It's moist and delicious, and it's almost impossible to stop at just one slice.

Rose Dodds from Bel Air was searching for a recipe for a cake similar to one that she enjoyed at a party. She said the texture was similar to poundcake and the almond flavor reminded her of Italian amaretti cookies. Patricia Waxman from Chapel Hill, N.C., sent in a recipe she had seen in Southern Living magazine for an amaretto-almond poundcake that she thought might be similar to the one Dodds was looking for. She thinks it is the best poundcake she has ever made: "It's moist and delicious, and it's almost impossible to stop at just one slice.

Our latest healthy recipe comes from WebMD . It's for those of you trying to improve your diet, but that can't curb that sweet tooth. WebMD says you can serve this cake with raspberries and a dollop of Cool Whip. If you have a healthy recipe you'd like to share send it to: andrea.walker@baltsun.com . Ingredients:   3/4 cup less-sugar raspberry preserves 1 cup whole-wheat flour 1 cup unbleached white flour 1 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup Splenda 3/4 cup baking cocoa 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup less-fat margarine (with 8 grams of fat per tablespoon)

Our latest healthy recipe comes from WebMD . It's for those of you trying to improve your diet, but that can't curb that sweet tooth. WebMD says you can serve this cake with raspberries and a dollop of Cool Whip. If you have a healthy recipe you'd like to share send it to: andrea.walker@baltsun.com . Ingredients:   3/4 cup less-sugar raspberry preserves 1 cup whole-wheat flour 1 cup unbleached white flour 1 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup Splenda 3/4 cup baking cocoa 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup less-fat margarine (with 8 grams of fat per tablespoon)

We received many responses to Sandy Anderson's plea for a rich pound cake.Larry G. Sallor of Baltimore writes that Sandy would be "hard pressed to find a better recipe than than the whipping cream pound cake."Please note that this cake starts in a cold oven. Also note that the recipe calls for cake flour. Cake flour and regular, all-purpose flour, are not interchangable.Whipping Cream Pound Cake3 cups sugar1/2 pound butter, softened7 eggs, at room temperature3 cups cake flour, sifted twice1 cup whipping cream2 teaspoons vanilla extractButter and flour a ten-inch tube or Bundt pan. Thoroughly cream sugar and butter.

An easy-to-make cake which begins in a cold oven and come out a warm tasty treat is perfect for after dinner.Marie Wingrove of Baltimore requested the recipe for cold-oven pound cake. There were a bumper crop of responses, many of which were similar, making it difficult for Chef Syglowski of the Baltimore International Culinary College to choose one.The chef chose one from Lynne Berger of Pikesville, who wrote that she has made this cake for many years "from an old cookbook called 'Grannie's Goodies From Somerset County' which I bought from a nursing home in that county.

Pound cake is the white sofa of the dessert world: sophisticated, classic and easy to accessorize. And this may be the year for pound cake, just as it is for understated white and neutral home furnishings. If you've avoided pound cakes, preferring a "knock-'em-dead'" chocolate dessert, you've been missing out on the luscious flavor and texture that an excessive and essential amount of butter, sugar and eggs can produce. Well-made pound cake has a texture as fine as $200 bed sheets and a delicate and rich flavor.

It makes no difference whether the bride's father is paying for a country club dinner or a fire hall pit-beef feed -- a deceptively simple pound cake, festooned with sugar swags and roses coaxed from a pastry bag, has become as much a part of local weddings as overdressed cousins and under-rehearsed musicians.It's been said that some Baltimore brides would skip the tossed rice and rented limos rather than omit the concentric circles baked and iced in Graul's Market's busy Bellona Avenue store in the commercial heart of Ruxton.

To make sure consumers can have their cake and diet too, major baking companies are offering fat-reduced or even fat-free baked goods.Faring well in an informal taste test were Entenmann's new fat-free products, expanding upon the cholesterol-free line that the company introduced two years ago.Entenmann's says it uses non-fat milk and egg whites in this line of 15 baked goods, which range from $2.59 to $3.29. Packaging includes nutrition labeling but doesn't give diet exchanges (a breakdown of nutrition contents for use in diabetic eating and weight-loss programs)

Here's the king's favorite pound cake recipe. The recipe, for Joyce Graham of Baltimore, is from Mary E. McCartney, also of Baltimore. Several readers sent us identical copies. Joyce Eiken of Towson said the cake is very rich and delicious. She says it's important to follow the recipe exactly.Elvis Presley Whipping Cream Pound Cake3 cups sugar1/2 pound softened butter7 eggs, room temperature3 cups cake flour, sifted twice1 cup whipping cream2 teaspoons vanilla extractButter and flour a 10-inch tube pan. Thoroughly cream together sugar and butter.

Walter E. Uebersax, a retired Parkville baker renowned for his peach and pound cakes produced in a rowhouse oven, died of Parkinson's disease complications Saturday at the Maryland Masonic Home in Cockeysville. The Sparks resident was 89. Mr. Uebersax was a Baltimore native, born at home and delivered by his father, a Swiss-immigrant baker. The elder Uebersaxes - Ernest and Alvena - established the Fenwick Bakery in 1926, naming it for an avenue off Harford Road near Clifton Park, a location they selected so that their children would be close to the city's best schools.

When I was asked to write a food story for this new edition I was thrilled, because I am all about food. I traded the TV news anchor desk for a fantastic food journey as host of Food Network's Food Finds. What a dream job ... to travel all over the country and discover the most delectable treats imaginable. Believe me, I've tried them all. I have the five extra pounds to prove it. Wherever I go, I am asked what are my favorite food finds. There are too many to mention. And that's saying a lot because, when it comes to food, I am very picky.

WASHINGTON -- We usually think of Bill Cosby as the jolly, Jell-O-pitching, Cliff Huxtable father figure who never gets agitated about much. But even the jolly Jell-O man feels the need sometimes to liberate his inner grouch. One such moment occurred as he was being honored at a black-tie bash in Washington commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. According to witnesses, he astonished many at the posh affair by launching into a sermon that mocked the talk, fashion and spending habits of poor black people.

NOW THAT WE are officially off and running in the 2003 holiday season, I'd like to inject a note of caution. As we all gather, I'd think about not overdoing it, going crazy, getting tied up in emotional knots while trying to create an ideal celebration. I'll never forget how blue my grandmother Lily Rose grew one Thanksgiving morning. An early riser, she had made her boiled cranberry sauce and poured it into a cut-glass bowl her mother received as a wedding gift in 1880. As the heated berries touched the cold, untempered glass, the whole thing shattered.

Pound cake is the white sofa of the dessert world: sophisticated, classic and easy to accessorize. And this may be the year for pound cake, just as it is for understated white and neutral home furnishings. If you've avoided pound cakes, preferring a "knock-'em-dead'" chocolate dessert, you've been missing out on the luscious flavor and texture that an excessive and essential amount of butter, sugar and eggs can produce. Well-made pound cake has a texture as fine as $200 bed sheets and a delicate and rich flavor.

Since my childhood I have been an unabashed fan of all things chocolate. For the past few weeks, I have been working on a recipe for a rich, dark chocolate pound cake. It has taken more than a few testings to produce a cake that is moist, tender and balanced strongly but not overwhelmingly with the taste of chocolate. After myriad tries, I am pleased with the final results. To the usual quartet of pound-cake ingredients of flour, butter, sugar and eggs, I added two types of chocolate -- unsweetened cocoa powder and chocolate chips.

What do you need to make your life look better? Will a dime do? Psychologist Norbert Schwarz, at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, says mere moods often determine our overall satisfaction with our lives. And, he says, "Very minimal things can temporarily put you in a good mood," and thus brighten everything else.In a classic study at a German university, Schwarz in the course of a day occasionally placed a coin equivalent to a dime on a copy machine for the next user to find.

NOW THAT WE are officially off and running in the 2003 holiday season, I'd like to inject a note of caution. As we all gather, I'd think about not overdoing it, going crazy, getting tied up in emotional knots while trying to create an ideal celebration. I'll never forget how blue my grandmother Lily Rose grew one Thanksgiving morning. An early riser, she had made her boiled cranberry sauce and poured it into a cut-glass bowl her mother received as a wedding gift in 1880. As the heated berries touched the cold, untempered glass, the whole thing shattered.

This week's menus Each day of the week offers a menu aimed at a different aspect of meal planning. There's a family meal, a kids' menu aimed at younger tastes, a heat-and-eat meal that recycles leftovers, a budget meal that employs a cost- cutting strategy, a meatless or "less meat" dish for people who may not be strict vegetarians but are trying to cut down on meat, an express meal that requires little or no preparation, and an entertaining menu that's...