Southwest Georgia Poundcake

Ingredients

* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
* 3 cups sugar
* 6 large eggs
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (you may use lemon or almond flavoring instead) I used vanilla. I think almond extract is yucky! Lemon might be good, but vanilla is the best! (In my humble opinion!)

Directions

Generously grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan. Do not preheat the oven. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Alternately add flour mixture and heavy cream to butter-sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Stir in flavoring.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Put into a cold oven and set the temperature to 325 degrees F. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes without opening the oven door. Bake for an additional 15 minutes if necessary. Remove from the oven and cool in pan for 15 minutes. Invert cake onto cake plate.

From whence it came: Well, it's time you know that I LOVE PAULA DEEN! Love her! And this is her recipe, so it screams delicioso! Paula just cracks me up. She has cooked her way to fame and fortune and filled a lot of tummies in the process. Paula, please invite me on your show so we can cook something together. Please! We'd have such a good ol' time! Did you ever see Paula on Oprah? So so funny, you must watch! And just to prove I'm a nutcase, sometimes when I'm cooking in my kitchen, I pretend I'm Paula, 'cause she is just so cool! I know if she knew me we would be BFFs!

Why it's blogable: Because it's Paula's recipe! Duh! And also because it has butter and heavy cream! Duh! Come to think of it, what Paula recipe doesn't have butter and heavy cream? That gal knows how to cook, and she most certainly knows how to make pound cake. And remember how I told you the hubby isn't really into fruity stuff? Well he makes a huge exception when I put strawberries on this cake! (The truth is that he puts a couple of strawberries on it and tops it with enough whipping cream to feed a small country. The man has no pride!) Seriously, this recipe makes the best strawberry shortcake you ever will taste!

Weird but true: Just like the recipe says, don't preheat the oven. I know that's so weird, but it will turn out perfect, I promise! The only trouble I had with this recipe was getting the dang thing out of the pan. It tends to stick. Grease it very generously with Crisco. And loosen it with a knife before attempting to put it on the plate. Last time I made it a huge chunk stayed in the pan. At first I was ticked off, but once I ate the chunk I felt much better!

Hope you enjoy stirring it up!