This is some very tasty poundcake. It uses brown sugar and we serve it with fresh strawberries and sour cream (similar to how we serve strawberries with sour cream and raw/brown sugar). It tastes like a good poundcake with a deeper sugar flavor, as you would expect. The recipe comes from “Sweet Auburn Desserts” an excellent southern dessert cookbook, but it is just poundcake, no special steps, limited hassles, happy faces. We suggest you make it for a summer party. It is also very good toasted for breakfast (not that we would ever do anything like that).

So, since that doesn’t fill many paragraphs, let us tell you about the wild bunny running around in the kitchen. Since we have a large garden “farm”, we get plenty of critters. Some welcome, some not. The veggie beds are caged above and below, but there are still plenty of goodies (mostly in the orchard) to entertain the gophers, wood rats, moles, lizards and squirrels. We have a large deer fence around the “perimeter” to keep most of the deer, coyotes and perhaps larger animals at bay. These are our “passive” defenses, and they work pretty well.

As for the “active” defenses we have some traps for gophers (the enemy) and we happily dispatch wood rats (the ones that steal fruit) whenever we find their nests. But on a day-to-day basis, Oreo the cat is our primary “enforcer”. Oreo is a rescued barn cat that lost her tail to a coyote. She lost her gig at the barn. This ended up being a good deal for the cat, as she gets to practice her “craft” with minimal interference here at the farm. And, until recently, everything was good. But then things started to change…

First, the cat started to catch songbirds. She didn’t usually kill them, but would bring us a “gift”. The sight of Carolyn shaking the cat to release a bird (they usually get away in a puff of feathers) is…..”amusing”, to say the least. Then a few weeks ago some rabbits moved inside the deer fence and, suddenly, here is the cat bringing us bunnies as gifts. Not good. Bunnies are cute, the kids like bunnies. (And are we so “shallow” that we value cute songbirds and bunnies more than ugly gophers and rats? Yes, absolutely.)

So the other evening the cat brings us a still kicking live bunny as a gift. We come out to “free” the bunny and, once free, the bunny runs inside the house and into the kitchen (right past our puzzled dog, I might add). Now we are chasing a very scared bunny in laps around the kitchen island until it tries to hide and we finally catch it (gently) with a towel to move it outside. Great. Then we let it go and it runs right into the open garage! Ugh. Dumb. Bunny. (Dumb farmers? Maybe.) The bunny later escaped from the open garage during the night. We just hope the cat wasn’t waiting….Never a dull moment here at the farm.

Brown Sugar Poundcake:

(Adapted from “Sweet Auburn Desserts”)

Notes Before You Start:

• No notes. It’s poundcake with a little something extra- go make it.

What You Get: Poundcake with deeper sugar flavor and some extra color. Good cake for a crowd.

What You Need: No special equipment required. A stand mixer will really help, though.

How Long? A couple of hours, but maybe 15 minutes of active time. You start poundcake in a cold oven, so it takes 90+ minutes to bake. Plan accordingly.

Ingredients:

(Makes a cake for 12 to 16)

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Assemble:

1. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube or bundt pan. Place a rack in the middle of the oven.
2. In a mixer, beat together the butter and shortening at medium speed until creamy. Then gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined.
3. In a separate large bowl combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Alternately add the flour mixture and the evaporated milk to the butter mixture, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Mix the batter at low-speed after each addition until just combined. Stir in the vanilla extract.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Place the pan into the oven and set the temperature to 350 degrees. Bake the cake for 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours, or until a toothpick or tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes. Transfer the cake from the pan to a wire rack and allow to cool completely before serving.
5. Serve with strawberries and sour cream if you like. Ice cream works, too….

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