Chocolate Pound Cake

My fondest cooking memories involve two people: my mom, of course, and my former college roommate and dear friend Zillah. Since Zillah introduced me to this cake, let me tell you a little bit about our passion for cooking.

By a lucky mistake, Zillah and I ended up roommates our freshman year at college, where we quickly discovered that not only did we both enjoy eating tasty treats, we shared a love of baking them. We soon developed a weekly ritual of making something, usually chocolatey, in between the mounds of homework we had piling up. And the guys in the neighboring building quickly learned that it would be wise to stay up until the wee hours of the morning to try our concoctions, many of which came from this cookbook.

Eight years later, we were still cooking once a week (though our "baking night" had evolved to a much more elaborate cooking night, where everything we made took hours, strange ingredients, and exotic spices), until Zillah went off to grad school on the other side of the country. Now we have to make do with a few days spread sporadically throughout the year when we cook all day and force all our friends and family to stuff their faces with our feast. They don't really protest about it for some reason.

I can't remember the first time we made this cake together, but I've made it dozens of times since then. I've made it for bridal showers, parties, and just because I was hungry. It's chocolatey, but not overpowering, moist, but not sopping, and rich, but not heavy. It's great with powdered sugar on top, a drizzled glaze, or fresh fruit with a light syrup. It might even be better the second day.

Smiley Face Chocolate Pound Cake
from Forrest Gump: My Favorite Chocolate Recipes*
Pictures by Caroline

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
6 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon soda
1/2 cup cocoa
1 8 oz carton sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 325° and grease and flour a bundt or 10-inch tube cake pan.
   
2. In a large mixing, beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until yellow disappears.
3. Combine flour, soda and cocoa.
   
4. Alternate adding sour cream and flour mixture to eggs and sugar, beginning and ending with flour. Mix at lowest speed just until blended after each addition.
   
5. Stir in vanilla.
   
6. Pour batter into the pan (you may have a bit too much batter for the pan; if you do, I suggest either eating the batter (it's really good) or pouring it into cupcakes, adjusting the bake time accordingly). Bake 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
   
7. Let cool on a wire rack.
   

*I wrote this recipe down years ago from Zillah's copy of this cookbook. The directions here are not word-for-word from the cookbook...but I promise they work just fine.