Colorful Pound Cake!

Now, for a change of pace: pound cake! With food coloring! :)

Pound Cake
I'm not completely sure where this recipe came from, probably my mom. :)

1 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
Food coloring

Prep time: 30-45 minutes
Bake time: 90 minutes (1 1/2 hours)
Oven: 350 degrees F
Yield: 1 tube or bundt pan

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream softened butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time, until well combined.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.  Stir dry ingredients together in another bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Once well combined, mix in the vanilla. 
So, now you have this:

And this:

 I got the idea to color  my cake from here, who got it from elsewhere. Rainbow cakes and cupcakes have been floating around the internet for a while.  Anyways....I divided my batter as equally as I could into three bowls (please pardon my computer in the background, I was keeping track of something important while baking).

Choose your colors and squeeze (or drip) the coloring onto your batter. You will likely use quite a bit of coloring if you want vivid colors.  I wanted red, orange, and yellow to celebrate the arrival of Autumn.

 In process...

 All done!  I ran out of the red and yellow coloring, so I couldn't make the batter any more vivid, which was fine.

Pour one color at a time into your greased and floured pan (confession: I only greased mine). Red:

 Try to pour them evenly because you don't want to have to spread them much. The colors will swirl together and begin to mix if you try.  Of course, you might want this effect and it would probably be pretty cool.  Orange:

And my last layer, yellow:

Pop it into your preheated oven (350 degrees F) and watch it bake.  I thought it was very interesting how the lowest layer (red) actually rose up the edges because of how the batter was poured onto it.

 So, once a toothpick inserted into the middle of the ring of cake come out clean, the cake should be done.  My cake usually has to bake 1 hour and 15 minutes, but thanks to my oven, the "top" (whatever is closest to the roof of the oven) is always over-done. I did pretty well with keeping this cake from burning, but if you look closely, you'll see some burned edges.

Holding the pan with hot pads, flip it over onto a cooling rack and let the cake fall out of the pan.  It should come out easily, but if it doesn't, don't force it. Just let the pan sit upside down on the rack while the cake cools.  It should come out easily eventually. If it doesn't, then you definitely didn't grease the pan well enough and, well, have fun getting the stuck cake out! ;)

Once it's cooled, slice and enjoy!  Of course, you don't have to wait for it to fully cool, but it is recommended.  Not that I ever listen to that particular recommendation when it comes to pound cake....

Mmmmm!

~Regina

Note: Of course, you don't have to put food coloring into the cake, you can just make it plain and it's just as wonderful that way.  But I like to brighten things up every once in a while. :)