Now that I am retired I wanted to get back into baking and fire up my blog again. A while back my sister introduced me to the show Zoe Bakes on Discovery+. I was immediately hooked on it. I enjoyed Zoes easy manner and approach to baking as well as her simple homey recipes without a lot of fuss. I thought this would be a good way to get back into baking on a regular bases and decided to bake through her book Zoe Bakes Cakes.

Now that my cookbook collection has approached the massive stage I need to be selective when buying new books as I am simply running out of space for them. I have gotten into the habit of checking a possible book out of the library to see if I really do indeed want it for my collection. After trying for months to get this book from the library and always finding it checked out I figured it must be popular and have some merit so I just broke down and bought it. It arrived yesterday and I was indeed pleasantly surprised to see that it also has Zoes no fuss down home simple recipes. The book is divided into sections starting with simple and moving to the more complex. I decided to start at the beginning with the plain cakes and this is the first one in the book. Vanilla Bean Pound Cake. Not only is it very simple to make but also happens to be one of my favorite cakes, The added bonus is that the recipe makes two loaf cakes so you can eat one and share one.

Assembly couldn’t get much easier. Cream the butter until very fluffy. Add the sugar in 3 additions and beat until combined, then beat on high speed until very fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat to combine. Add the flour in three additions, scaping the bowl after each addition. Divide the batter between two loaf pans and bake until done, about an hour.

It is a standard pound cake recipe. A pound of butter, a pound of flour, a pound of sugar and a pound of eggs. In this case, she uses confectioners sugar instead of caster or granulated sugar. Flavoring comes from vanilla extract, vanilla been seeds and some optional citrus zest. I opted for orange zest as opposed to the usual lemon zest.