Happy St. Patrick's Day! It's the one day out of the year where my baking can match my clothes. Green, after all, has always been my favorite color. This year St. Patrick's Day also fell within the week of Spring Break at the college where I work. It's fairly quiet on campus, which makes it the perfect time to bring in treats to colleagues who have been working so hard to make it to mid-semester.
So I knew I would be baking something green well before the day arrived. I just wasn't sure what. I wanted to make something from scratch and use the ingredients I had. I'm not sure how the idea of "pound cake" came into my head--it must have popped up in my Internet search for recipes using self-rising flour (I had a leftover container my mom gave me for pancakes). But most of the those self-rising baked goods also called for buttermilk--which I did not have. In my fridge, however, was a small tub of sour cream. I knew this could be a good substitution for some baked goods. In fact, a few donut recipes appeared when I modified my search for self-rising flour and sour cream. But I was most drawn to a post for Sour Cream Pound Cake from farmflavor.com. It might take a while to bake, but sounded super easy to put together. And the instructions on my green food coloring bottle said I only needed to add 1/2 teaspoon into any cake batter to get that green tint. Perfect! My St. Pat's Green Sour Cream Pound Cake was born.
Ingredients:
2 sticks of butter (16 Tablespoons), softened but not melted
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups self-rising flour (sifted)
8 oz. sour cream (I use Daisy Lite)
1/2 teaspoon liquid green food coloring (I used McCormick)
Optional strawberries, green, grapes, whipped cream, and green frosting to decorate
Directions:
1.) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a very large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with an electric or stand mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each, then add the vanilla and mix again.
2.) Alternate adding flour and sour cream until all ingredients are combined. Add the green food coloring last, mixing until thoroughly combined.
3.) Pour the batter into your pan of choice (that's been heavily greased with butter/flour or nonstick cooking spray). The original recipe calls for an hour and a half bake time for a tube/bunt pan. For my shallow book-shaped pan (slightly larger than 9x13 inches) I had to cut that baking time down significantly, checking after 30 minutes (still too wobbly), and ultimately baking only about 40-45 minutes total, until the top and edges were slightly brown and a toothpick inserted into the center came out clean.
4.) Remove the cake from the oven and let cool to room temperature before refrigerating overnight. Serve the next morning with strawberries, GREEN grapes for St. Paddy's, and any whipped cream or icing you choose.
I was a little nervous bringing the finished product to work the next morning after baking. Would a green cake be appetizing? Would the center be too solid or not solid enough? Despite a clean toothpick test, I hadn't cut into the cake or baked any side cakes to try first since the batter was just barely enough to fill my pan. And I didn't want to ruin the look of the finished cake before my coworkers saw it.
Turns out I didn't need to worry! The cake received rave reviews by my supervisor, our administrative assistant, and all the librarians and staff that had a piece. Nearly half the cake was gone by lunch time! The center was moist, the flavor was sweet, and I now have a go-to pound cake recipe for any time of year!
