For many years I tried in vain to make a pound cake that would have the soft, velvety texture which I remembered in that eaten at the table of a dear friend in my girlhood. The recipes which I tried made a fairly good cake, light and fine flavor, but the texture was never what I desired.

Soon after my Boston Cook Book was completed a friend gave me her mother's recipe for pound cake, and it was as definite as most of the old style formulas. One and one-half teacups butter, two blue cups sugar, five unbeaten eggs, added one at a time, and five handfuls of unsifted flour. Fortunately, my friend could show me by actual measurement just what she meant by handfuls of flour, and how she packed the butter in the teacup. The recipe then, as it stands, after a careful weighing and measurement by our standard half-pint cup, reads thus: One cup butter packed solid, one and two-thirds cups granulated sugar, one-half teaspoon mace, five unbeaten eggs, two cups sifted pastry flour. Have a round pan, greased and floured, the oven ready and ingredients measured, as the mixing must all be done by the hand. Cream the butter, add sugar, and work until very light, add spice and one egg at a time, and stir with the hand until you do not see any of the egg yolk, then another egg, and so on until all are used. Then mix in the flour, and turn at once into the pan, and bake slowly, about an hour.

The grain of the cake should be fine and close, with not a suspicion of any toughness or heaviness, not porous like a cake made light with gas from soda and cream of tarter or by long beating, and yet soft, light, and velvety. This texture is obtained by the thorough blending of the butter and sugar, and not over beating the eggs.