CAKES: Moist Pound Cake

Preheat oven to 350. I use one of my Nordicware bundt pans (9 inch, 10-12 cup capacity) and just spray it wit h EverBake (KAF catlg) or you could use Pam (but that eventually gunks up the bundt pan).

2 sticks butter - softened a bit
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1/8 - 1/4 tsp Fiori Di Sicilia or 1 tsp. vanilla extract or 1 tsp. orange extract with zest of orange
3 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup buttermilk

Cream butter for about 4 minutes and then add the sugar and beat another 2 minutes or so (should be light and fluffy). Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time until each is well combined (about 30 seconds) and add the extract. Beat this for another 2 minutes. Alternate adding flour and buttermilk, ending with flour.

Put it in the bundt pan and bake for 45-50 minutes.

Last week I made a Marble Pound Cake -- I made the regular cake batter but melted 3 tablespoons butter and mixed in 2 tablespoons cocoa (got that from BetterBaking.com). Then I mixed some of the regular batter with the cocoa mix. Put 1/2 the remaining 'vanilla' batter in the bundt pan, then the cocoa batter, then the rest of the 'vanilla' batter. Swirled it a bit with a knife. Baked it the same amount of time and it came out great.