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Plain-vanilla pound cake wins prize at Rural Hall
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Published: June 3, 2009
Updated: 06/02/2009 08:45 pm
RURAL HALL -- Rural Hall celebrated the 35th anniversary of its incorporation in good taste Saturday.
The celebration at Covington Memorial Park included a classic car show, arts and crafts, games for kids and a pound-cake contest.
The North Forsyth Extension Club sponsored the contest to raise money for its various service projects. The club makes pillows and stuffed animals to donate to area hospitals. It also collects and donates food and other items to homeless shelters, Lions Club, King Outreach Center and other organizations.
The contest drew 14 entries, and sales of the cakes raised $173 for the club.
Chef Don McMillan of Catering by Simple Elegance and I were asked to judge the contest. The rules allowed any kind of pound cake as long as it had no glaze, icing or sauce.
Half plain, others flavored
About half the cakes were plain, with just vanilla or lemon flavors. Others were flavored with chocolate, strawberry, and pumpkin and spice.
But after scrutinizing all the cakes for appearance, taste, texture and creativity, the plain vanilla-flavored pound cake by Lois Hoots of Rural Hall stood out.
Hoots' first-place cake won her a $55 gift certificate to the Stocked Pot, a cooking school and kitchenware shop run by McMillan's company.
Second place went to the super-moist, pumpkin-spice pound cake by Willie-Mae Witherspoon of Winston-Salem. She received the bound 2007 and 2008 issues of Cook's Country magazine.
Honorable mentions went to Jane Bodenhamer of Rural Hall for a sour-cream pound cake and Olene S. Booth of Winston-Salem for a vanilla-lemon pound cake.
Longtime baker
Hoots is no stranger to pound cakes. She has been using her winning recipe for 37 years.
She used to enter her cakes in contests at the Dixie Classic and Stokes County fairs years ago with her daughters. But she got out of the habit after they grew up.
"But I still make pound cakes all the time -- for church and for family dinners," she said.
Hoots heard about the Rural Hall contest from her mother-in-law, and decided to give it a try.
Hoots likes to bake. She makes pies, muffins and other goodies. But she has always been partial to pound cakes. "Pound cakes are my specialty," she said.
She will make pound cakes flavored with chocolate, brown sugar and other ingredients. Her all-time favorite is the plain pound cake she entered in the contest.
This cake was as close to perfect as it gets: Lightly golden, tall, regal, moist inside, with a uniform crumb that's dense but light at the same time.
Hoots said she has honed this recipe since she first started using it. Like a traditional pound cake, it uses no baking soda or baking powder. Instead, it relies on sufficient creaming and beating of the eggs to give it the proper rise.
Hoots credits the even, golden color of the cake to her favorite pound-cake pan, a 12-cup commercial-weight steel Bundt pan that evenly distributes the heat. "My aluminum pan doesn't do as pretty a cake," she said.
Keys to a good pound cake, Hoots said, include watching it carefully to avoid overbaking, and beating the eggs thoroughly.
And, conversely, she avoids overmixing the flour to keep the cake tender. "I try to do all the good mixing before I get to the flour and milk," she said.
Pound Cake
Recipe from Lois Hoots.
1 cup Crisco shortening
1 stick margarine (4 ounces)
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature
3¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla flavoring
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan.
2. Cream margarine and Crisco shortening in electric stand mixer until light and fluffy. Add sugar and mix well. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
3. In a separate bowl, stir flour and salt together. Add flour alternately with milk to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
4. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes, or just until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Check early to avoid overbaking.
5. Cool in pan about 5 minutes. Then remove from pan and cool completely.
■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.
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