SunDrop Pound Cake
This is my dad’s recipe, shockingly enough. My dad doesn’t do much in a kitchen, nor does he keep a house well-stocked with food, but the few things he does do in the cooking and baking realm, he does exceptionally well (he makes a mean chili and can grill you the best anything-you-could-ever-imagine, better-than-you’ve-ever-had). This pound cake is what I consider to be his crowning glory.
Granted, if you live outside of the geographical region that I grew up in (Piedmont North Carolina), you have probably never heard of SunDrop, which is fine by me. It is a local soft drink that we like to keep local and it tastes like no other soft drink in the world, especially in it’s Cherry Lemon form. Since the majority of you readers cannot get your hands on a can of SunDrop, you will simply have to find some sort of substitute; most any lemon-lime soda will do, but it has to have a lot of lift to it (super-carbonated) to do the trick. Happy hunting.
Oh, and it is a pound cake, so if you’re looking for healthy, the buck stops here. This is just good southern cooking, no apologies…
Ingredients (in Dad’s terms):
2 sticks of butter
1/2 c. Crisco or shortening
3 c. sugar
5 eggs
3 c. plain flour
1 t. vanilla
1 t. lemon extract
6 oz. SunDrop (you get the rest of the can to drink for pleasure!)
Directions:
1. Soften all your fats to room temp.
2. When ready, heat oven to 325 F. Grease up a bundt cake pan and dust with flour.
3. In a big mixing bowl, cream fats with sugar, add eggs and blend. Add everything else and stir up until you get a good batter. Dump into greased pan.
4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes (unless pan is dark, then only bake for 1 hour) or until toothpick comes out clean.
5. Let cool and flip onto serving platter. Doesn’t need anything to doll it up; just slice and go. Wrap in foil to store.
