June 14: Basil Pound Cake

I come by it honest and the proof is in the cake this week, or rather in the cake recipe.

I have always had a slightly obsessive relationship with magazines.  I always want to be the first one to read a magazine when I buy it or receive it by subscription.  While I realize that most magazines are read at the newsstand or grocery store checkout line and then put back, I still prefer to be the first in the house to read MY magazine.  I remember buying my first Seventeen at the newsstand at the Greyhound terminal to read on my solo bus trip to  Granna's house in Tifton during a middle school summer.  I kept it and flipped through the pages for the trends that whole summer, and after returning home I kept it because it reminded me of my trip to Granna's.  I still have the issues of French Vogue that I bought in Paris during my gap year in the late 1980s.

There have been times in my life when my budget was so tight, that I felt like a shiny magazine was the only luxury I could afford.  I got to bring one home and carve out time to savor the perfumed pages of a fashion magazine, or the envy-producing photo array from a decorating magazine, or the inspiring recipes from a food & lifestyle periodical.  Cheap thrills.

When I was growing up, my mom had an unwritten rule that had been handed down from Mama Judy, no person in our house was allowed to open and read a magazine until that magazine had first been read by the person to whom it belonged by subscription or off the rack.  Likewise, no magazine should be cut-up, thrown-away or recycled unless by that owner.  Mama Judy was a notorious "purger" of other things, like the clothes she designed and made for my mom but then donated as soon as my mom outgrew them.

Magazines were different.  Judy held on to magazines, especially decorating magazines.  She kept stacks of magazines to revisit for design inspiration the next time she redecorated or rearranged the furniture.  She kept pictures from magazines to catalyze clothing creations and help steer her pattern making.  My mother embraced the practice and passed it down to me.  We graduated from keeping stacks of magazines, to piles of pages.  Like my mom, I keep folders of articles torn from magazines and newspapers; folders full of gift ideas, book reviews, home decorating dreams, travel tips, even gift wrapping inspiration.  The largest folder is the recipe file, an accordion file with sections for different types of dishes.  The Saturday Cakes are helping me tackle the "cakes" category.

The week before last, my mother gave me a folder of cake recipes that she had been saving but had never gotten around to baking.  This Basil Pound Cake is from Mom's collection of clippings; it is from the July 1984 (!) issue of Better Homes and Gardens and is on a page filled with recipes for foods found in American summer gardens.



I thought is was interesting that the recipe recommended baking the cake in the 9x13x2-inch baking pan (or a loaf pan).  I had only ever made pound cake in a loaf or tube pan.  Also, the recipe included a buttercream frosting.  I had never had frosting on a pound cake except at a wedding!  The cake turned out very well.  Autumn proclaimed that she liked it better than plain pound cake, and she is the only child we have who doesn't like frosting.  Although it only contains one tablespoonful, the fresh basil gives the cake a mild flavor that is green and bright.  I think it is brighter and more distinctive without the frosting.  Keith, a big fan of buttercream frosting, can't decide whether he likes it better with or without.  I think that I will make it next time without the frosting, but accompany it with a fruit topping (fig preserves? lemon curd?).  Or perhaps I will get a serving idea from a new magazine...

Next Saturday:  A Pound Cake for Father's Day