Ube Pound Cake

I ran across a recipe for an ube pound cake online. Now, as with so many things online, especially recipes, a lot of people post them without any attribution, which kind of sucks because when someone posts a recipe, they are happy to share it, they just don't you reposting it on your site without the slightest thank you. 

Over at Asian in America, Betty Ann posted her recipe for an ube pound cake. It was really cool and pretty unique -- the "pound" part not the "ube" part. When she got ready to make this cake, and even though it was a very original idea, she used another pound cake recipe on which to base her cake. She used a recipe from Nancie McDermott's cookbook Southern Cakes and she credited it!

Many years ago, over at Cookbook Of The Day, we did a post about a White Fruitcake. The recipe is credited to Eudora Welty, though Miss Eudora was always quick to point out that she stole the recipe. And speaking of Southern cakes, Miss Eudora's stolen recipe also found its way into McDermott's Southern Cakes. 

I made my ube pound cake in a Lucinda's Wood Cake Box, so I tweaked the recipe a bit.  I would have never made it if my friend, Jurry, hadn't dropped what she was doing to head over to the Filipino market to score my ube. I made the above cake and a spare to send out to Jurry.

One cannot always find a clear attribution to recipes.  I often see MY cornbread recipe printed in many places and I can assure you it is the same cornbread recipe my great-great-on-and-on grandmother made. It's even the same skillet!  So it is mine. People are always writing books on where this or that recipe came from. Go ahead, ask a Southerner the exact origin of the Red Velvet Cake.  Everyone thinks they know...

I think recipes are a lot like songs. You sing them in the kitchen, and sometime you sing louder, and sometime you sing slower, and sometime you have to look up the words, and the vast majority of the time you sing it, even if you didn't write it. But if you do know where a recipe comes from, say thanks.

So join in the chorus:

Click on over to Asian in America for her recipe.

Buy yourself a copy of Southern Cakes, for good recipes and even better stories.

Make friends with Jurry, or another Filipino to help you find unique ingredients

Always bake extra and remember, you are never in the kitchen alone.