When a man named Robert Starnes gave Myra Davis a recipe for sour cream pound cake and asked her to bake it for an athletic banquet in 1972, she didn’t know it would become one of her signature desserts.
Davis, a retired education administrator in Chilton County, and several of her colleagues were asked to prepare the cake to be served with strawberries at the banquet.
She was so pleased with the cake and others’ reactions to it that she continued making and taking it to gatherings.
“I have been baking this recipe ever since,” Davis said. “During my years as an education administrator, I began making (it) for meetings we had and everyone always enjoyed it.”
Forty years later, Davis is still baking her sour cream pound cake and always uses the square tube cake pan her mother-in-law gave her about 30 years ago.
The reason for the sour cream is to add more moisture.
“It is so moist and is good to eat any time of the day,” she said, “But I particularly like to serve it while it is still warm. Probably the biggest fans are my three granddaughters, Breanna, Lillian and Shelby. They enjoy putting on their little red aprons, helping and scraping the bowl.”
Sour Cream Pound Cake
3 cups sugar
2 sticks butter
6 eggs
3 cups plain flour
8 ounces sour cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
Have all ingredients at room temperature. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan. Set the oven at 350 degrees. Sift flour and soda together three times. Separate eggs. Add salt to egg whites and beat until a peak forms. Cream the butter and sugar. Add egg yolks one at a time to butter and sugar mixture, beating after each. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt. Next, alternate adding the sour cream and flour, beginning and ending with the flour. Fold in egg whites. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Check with cake tester or toothpick for doneness. Increase time if needed.
-Emily Beckett