This recipe is straight out of my mom’s recipe book. It’s dated 5/25/89, so she has been making this delicious pound cake for nearly 20 years! The best part about this cake is the glaze you pour on the top - it’s what sets it apart from other pound cakes and poppy seed breads.  It’s the perfect thing to serve for brunch or dessert - a delicious and satisfying compliment to a freshly brewed cup of coffee!  

Ingredients: 

Cake:

2 ½ cups of sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ cups of milk
1 1/8 cups of oil (vegetable or canola)
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
1 ½ teaspoons butter flavoring (sold in the spice section near the extracts)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 to 1 ½ tablespoons poppy seeds 

Glaze: 

¾ cup sugar
¼ cup orange juice
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
½ teaspoon butter flavoring

 Instructions: 

1)      Heat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour 2 loaf pans.

2)      In a large bowl using an electric hand or stand mixer, mix together the sugar, oil, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, almond extract, and butter flavoring. (Very wet mixture – if you mix on high it will fly! I recommend a lower mixing speed. J)

3)      In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients: Flour, baking powder, and salt.

4)      Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

5)      Mix in poppy seeds.

6)      Scrape the edges of the bowl and mix entire mixture for 1 minute at medium speed.

7)      Pour into loaf pans and bake for 1 hour.

8)      Approximately 5-10 minutes before cooking time is up, heat glaze ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring continually so that all the sugar dissolves.

9)      When the cakes come out of the oven, brush with the glaze – use it all!

10)  Allow the cake to cool for at least 30 minutes before serving so that the glaze can harden.  

Notes: 

• Freezes well.
• I recommend you avoid using a non-stick loaf pan. The edges and bottom of the cakes always get overcooked when I use one. The super-cheap metal pans seem to work the best.
• If you don’t have Pam for Baking cooking spray, you need to get some. It makes greasing and flouring the pans so much easier!