7-Up Cake.

[Big Daddy's House]

Actually, this is really a pound cake, but it tastes so good!! It only requires 6 to 7 ingredients.

It's kind of heavy & dense, as most pound cakes usually are. Careful preparation and precise measurement is key to a successful product that you'll want to make again and again!


3 sticks butter softened at room temp.

3 cups sugar.

5 or 6 eggs at room temp.

3 cups sifted flour*.

1 cup 7-Up.

1 teaspoon pure lemon extract.

1 teaspoon lemon zest (optonal).



Preheat oven to about 325 degrees.

Grease a 10-inch tube pan and dust with flour, or use a cooking spray designed for baking only and coat interior of pan evenly. Set aside.

Using electric mixer, cream butter on medium speed until it is smooth, shiny and almost opague, about the color and consistancy of mayonaise. Add sugar and continue beating until smooth, light and fluffy, scraping bowl periodically.

Add lemon extract, lemon zest if desired, then add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each.

Gadually add flour in about three stages until it is all incorporated. Reduce speed of mixer to low.

Slowly add 7-Up. Mix well on low speed.

Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Tap pan lightly on surface once or twice to remove any air pockets that might have formed in batter during pouring.

Move rack in oven to lower third. Bake cake in oven for about 90 minutes or until toothpick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean and dry with only a few crumbs on it.

Cool cake in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert pan and remove cake. Continue cooling it on rack until just barely warm. Enjoy! :)


*Do NOT use self-rising flour in this recipe. It will be a disaster!! :eek:

~~~~~~~~~~~~

An important note;

In order to get that real Southern-style down-home buttery lemony goodness, in cakes that the South is widely & very famous for, please do not substitute margerine and imitation lemon extract in place of the real thing. It won't work and you will NOT get that taditional buttery lemony flavor! :(

You might just as well not bother making it until you have the real things for it. :(

[natt12321]

~~~~~~~~~~~~

An important note;

In order to get that real Southern-style down-home buttery lemony goodness, in cakes that the South is widely & very famous for, please do not substitute margerine and imitation lemon extract in place of the real thing. It won't work and you will NOT get that taditional buttery lemony flavor! :(

You might just as well not bother making it until you have the real things for it. :(

It makes me sad that you would say this, if I want to substitute for marg I will, not everyone likes things to be overly buttery. I don't use butter for a few reasons but I'm completely put off this recipe by the end comment.

As for lemon essence, most people won't notice the difference but if you are using lemon zest why not just use lemon juice? It has a much nicer flavour than either extract or essence.

[Big Daddy's House]

It's TRUE, but if you choose to substitute magerine for butter, then that is YOUR perogative. I can't MAKE you use butter, but it just won't taste the same.

I'm just stating the facts. I won't kid anyone by saying that substiotutes for real butter are just as equal in value. I would be lying if I did.

Yeah, lemon zest IS probably just as equal, but even too much of THAT can be quite overbearing.

I've learned long time ago that when you bake, nothing artificial is worth using. I try to use the purest of ingredients. If you are going to put all that effort into producing a very good baked product, then why not make sure that you are using the purest of ingredients?

[SilverSage]

Sherm, I'm pretty sure that Natalie is vegetarian. She would always sub out margarine for butter. And since that is what she's used to, she most likely prefers it.

I happen to agree with you that butter tastes better in everything. But different people have different preferences, diets, and restrictions. :)

Nat, the lemon extract is much more concentrated than lemon juice. If you don't use the extract, you will probably need to bump up the zest, since it has much more flavor than juice.

[Big Daddy's House]

Thanx.

I don 't look at butter as meat, and it isn't, even though some would prefer not to use it.
That is up to them.

And you're right, lemon juice does not have the kind of flavor that you'd look for in a cake. You'd probably get more TARTNESS than flavor at this point.

[Big Daddy's House]

During my culinary arts training, the bakery chef used margerine and imitation vanilla extract in place of the real thing, to make pound cakes.

A little boy was there with someone. He was nine at the time. He wanted a piece of the pound cake. After trying some of it, he frowned up. I asked him what was the matter. He said that the cake had no buttery taste and no vanilla in it!! He refused to eat any more of it!! I was shocked that he could tell the difference!!

Now, if a child can tell the difference between real & fake in baking, then that should have sent a message to the chef that substitute ingredients don't always work when baking cakes.

Incidentally, In told the boy that he was right, and that I wouldn't eat it either.

[natt12321]

Thanks Silversage. Although it's not cos I'm veggie, no butter would make me vegan. I use marg because I do significantly more baking than most and only work part time, marg is about half the price of the same quantity of butter. I actually prefer things made with marg to those made with butter though, I was bought up on a fairly low fat diet so maybe that's got alot to do with it, but I find baked goods made with butter to be quite heavy (with certain exceptions as with any rule).

As far as pure products, lemon juice is highly flavoursome not just tart and if you understand the basics of bakery you wouldn't find it too difficult to sub between extract and juice to create the same level of flavour. But what exactly is pure about 7up?

If you can't see the place for artificial products in your baking and cooking then so be it, but they do have a place for many people and you need not tell people not to bother with your recipe just because they wouldn't be making it as you'd want them to. That's the beauty of recipes, you can change them as you want to the effect YOU want not the effect the author wants.

[Big Daddy's House]

Never once said that 7up is pure.

But if you feel or felt offended by what I said at the bottom of the recipe, then I'm sorry, but I DO bake with butter - margerine if a recipe callsfor it.

In fast, I mostly use butter in most of my cooking, but still in moderation.

If you remember it, years back, there ACTUALLY WAS a controversial issue between the two. Top health experts were saying that butter was no good. That it contains animal fat, which we all know. They frowned upon it for some time, saying that margerine (aka oleo) was the way to go because they were saying that it as no animal fat, so it can't hurt you in the long run.

Then they switched it back, saying that margerine was the one that's too unhealthy, suggesting that butter can be used as long as it's in moderation. They then began to say that margerine was the one that was unhealthy.

In recent years, while butter is thought to be better as long as people didn't use or consume it all the time, oleo again got another bad rap. This time, it was one of the chief ingredients uased in the manufacturing process - hydrogenated vegetable oil (aka, transfats).

Health officials and consumers were outraged and hopping mad when it was also learned that many restaurants were cooking their foods using transfats. So not only was it taken outy of margerine, but all other oils as well. And the eateries had stopped using it as well.

[natt12321]

*COUGH*

I've learned long time ago that when you bake, nothing artificial is worth using. I try to use the purest of ingredients. If you are going to put all that effort into producing a very good baked product, then why not make sure that you are using the purest of ingredients?*COUGH*

Ye you are clearly using just the purest of pure in your additive packed 7up based recipe. This kind of hypocrisy is pretty outstanding, like 'oh my gosh who dare use essence instead of extract is committing crimes against bakery but artificial fizzy drink that's totally a legit ingredient'

I dunno where the lecture on butter vs marg came from. I don't remember about the USA's trials and tribulations over which one is healthier as your standards and ours are SO different that it doesn't matter here. I said I use it because it's cheap and was bought up with it. I will keep using it.

I was just put off the entire recipe by the comments at the end of your post.

[Big Daddy's House]

Don't let that bother you. If you try it, it would be YOUR decision as to what goes in it. When I post a recipe here, it is not with the intention to hurt, disappoint or upset anyone. My views are my views, yours are yours. To each his or her own is my philosophy.

My mom used oleo a lot as well. Butter was too expensive, she said, so she only bought it sparingly when something that she was making had called for it.

Again, I never said that 7up was pure. I KNOW that it is full of stuff, but the recipe calls for it to be used. If not, then the taste might get thrown off. I was mainly speaking of the butter and the lemon extract.

I can and have made regular pound cakes all the time, but since trying THIS recipe, I found it to be better tasting than the traditional vanilla-flavored pound cake.

[Whoopie Pie]

I learned to cook using margarine, and if you buy the right one with high enough fat, you can produce very good results.

I now use butter exclusively for baking, that's my choice. I buy my butter from a club store 4 lbs. at a time, which makes it cheaper, but still double the cost of margarine. My mom still uses margarine, and that's OK too. She always ends up leaving some after she visits, I usually just toss it, because the kind she buys still has trans fats in it and I won't use it, again my choice. The "better for you" margarine here the kinds appropriate for baking are just about as expensive as real butter, because they are seen as a specialty Item. Margarine in Europe may well be better for you than they are here, and may have been without trans fats for some time now, and not viewed as a specialty item.

You will never really get enough lemon flavor out of lemon juice, you would need to use a combination of lemon juice and zest to come even close. Extracts are a great way of getting a good shot of flavor with little effort.

I read an interesting article in Cooks Illustrated, where they tested vanilla extracts. The gourmet high end ones fared quite well in the taste tests, but the vanilla that came out on top was an IMITATION vanilla, a store brand from CVS drug store.

So I tell everyone, "use the best ingredients that you can afford". There was a time when all I could afford was margarine and imitation extract, but I still managed to produce some pretty great things. People shouldn't refrain from baking because they have limited funds.

With all that said, a traditional pound cake has very few ingredients so having good quality ingredients is crucial. If you have found a great tasting great performing margarine, that could very well turn out a very nice pound cake!

[Big Daddy's House]

I learned to cook using margarine, and if you buy the right one with high enough fat, you can produce very good results.

I now use butter exclusively for baking, that's my choice. I buy my butter from a club store 4 lbs. at a time, which makes it cheaper, but still double the cost of margarine. My mom still uses margarine, and that's OK too. She always ends up leaving some after she visits, I usually just toss it, because the kind she buys still has trans fats in it and I won't use it, again my choice. The "better for you" margarine here the kinds appropriate for baking are just about as expensive as real butter, because they are seen as a specialty Item. Margarine in Europe may well be better for you than they are here, and may have been without trans fats for some time now, and not viewed as a specialty item.

You will never really get enough lemon flavor out of lemon juice, you would need to use a combination of lemon juice and zest to come even close. Extracts are a great way of getting a good shot of flavor with little effort.

I read an interesting article in Cooks Illustrated, where they tested vanilla extracts. The gourmet high end ones fared quite well in the taste tests, but the vanilla that came out on top was an IMITATION vanilla, a store brand from CVS drug store.

So I tell everyone, "use the best ingredients that you can afford". There was a time when all I could afford was margarine and imitation extract, but I still managed to produce some pretty great things. People shouldn't refrain from baking because they have limited funds.

With all that said, a traditional pound cake has very few ingredients so having good quality ingredients is crucial. If you have found a great tasting great performing margarine, that could very well turn out a very nice pound cake!




There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with using margerine. I just prefer to use butter instead for cooking, baking and at times, for toast. In cooking, I use it so sparingly. For sauteeing, I mainly add some oil to the skillet with just one or two pats of butter to get the buttery flavor.

And BTW, I DO have a large tub of margerine for spreading on things like begals, plain whole wheat bread & whole wheat toast. When it is all gone, I'll start using the little contaners of spreadable butter that I bought not too long ago.