One of my favorite food bloggers is Carol Blymire, author of the blogs The French Laundry at Home and Alinea at Home. Her concept is that she takes a high-end cookbook, follows each recipe and blogs her results; errors, mishaps and all. That combined with her wit and sense of humor makes for a very interesting read.

I’ve been inspired by her and I’m considering writing a similar blog, so this past weekend I decided to take some practice photos while making pound cake. This is a much simpler recipe than most of the ones that Carol makes, but it served as good practice. Any suggestions of which cookbook I should cook through? Leave them in comments.

The ingredients for pound cake: a pound of butter, a pound of eggs, a pound of flour, and a pound of sugar (are you noticing a theme here?), Grand Marnier, nutmeg, and salt.

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My mise en place; all the ingredients are measured and the eggs are separated.

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You begin by creaming the softened butter with the whisk attachment. The key to this recipe is keeping everything “fluffy.”

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After adding the sugar, keep whisking in order to keep everything light.

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Add the egg yolks two-at-a-time.

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Slowly add the 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier followed by the salt and nutmeg.

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Add the flour in thirds and transfer the batter to another bowl. At this point, the mixture should look a lot like mashed potatoes.

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After cleaning the mixing bowl, add the egg whites in preparation for whipping.

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Whip the egg whites to firm peaks, but not so much that they dry out.

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Fold the egg whites into the batter in order to keep it light. The egg whites are your leavening.

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Evenly portion the batter between two loaf pans which were prepared with butter and then lined with parchment paper.

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Smooth the top of the batter so it fills each loaf pan.

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Ready to bake.

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After baking for 70-80 minutes at 325F, the top should be split and a tester should come out clean.

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After cooling for 10 minutes in the loaf pans, remove and let cool fully on a cooling rack.

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After a little whipped cream, raspberries, and powdered sugar, it’s ready to eat!

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