She’s My Cherry Pie - Jocelyn Delk Adams Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi peeps. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe's special baking miniseries, She's My Cherry Pie. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and the author of the cookbook, Snackable Bakes. Each Saturday I'm hanging with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into one of their signature bakes. Today I'm talking pound cake with the lovely Jocelyn Delk Adams of Grandbaby Cakes. She's the author of the Grandbaby Cakes cookbook and the upcoming Everyday Grand: Soulful Recipes For Celebrating Life's Big and Small Moments, which you can pre-order now. And as many of you know, Jocelyn's website, grandbabycakes.com, is chock full of recipes, baking advice, and more. Jocelyn will be joining me in just a minute. So hold onto your whisk.
Thank you to California Prunes for sponsoring this slice of She's My Cherry Pie. Peeps, let's talk about California Prunes. You may not know this, but prunes are healthy, delicious, and have a rich deep flavor that pairs beautifully with everything from espresso to chocolate, caramel to cinnamon. If playing with flavor is your jam, then you know what I'm talking about. For my baker friends who are looking to cut down on sugar, it's prunes to the rescue or rather prune purée. What is prune purée, you might ask? Well, it's a combination of prunes and water that you blend together to create a velvety mixture that keeps in the fridge for up to four weeks. You can use the puree to replace from one third to half the sugar in a recipe. You can also do egg and oil swaps. Amazing, peeps, right? Visit californiaprunes.org for the swap specifics and to snag some holiday recipes for gingerbread, sticky buns, scones, and more. Look for prunes at your favorite grocery or specialty store. Peeps, you'll be swooning over prunes in no time.
Peeps, have you finished your holiday shopping? I won't lie. And don't tell my kids, but I haven't even started. But you have, I'm sure. And if you need a few ideas, check out the Cherry Bombe gift guides. There's one for the home cooks out there presented by Chronicle Books. And one for you cheese lovers presented by Cypress Grove. Head over to cherrybombe.com for more. Now let's check in with Jocelyn.
Jocelyn, thrilled to be chatting with you on She's My Cherry Pie.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I love that introduction. And thank you for saying my name with such zest. Jocelyn.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm a very zesty lady. So before we talk about pound cake, I want to hear more about how Grandbaby Cakes came to be. I loved this line from your Ted Talk. You said, "Facts tell, stories sell." And I'm super excited for you to share your story with us. And as I understand it, you didn't even realize you had the baking gene, as your family calls it, until you were in your 20s. Can you tell us what made you realize you had the gene?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Well, actually I think it had a lot to do with overwork. So I was in a job that I was completely exhausted from. Every single day, I would come home from work and I would just literally pass out because I was working insane hours. And I needed some type of an outlet where I felt like I could create some sort of zen and just relaxation. And at the time it felt more like a hobby. So I started baking recipes that I grew up with. I started baking my grandmother's pound cakes to sort of calm me down after a crazy day. And I would take them to work and everyone would just completely swoon and eat every last crumb. And then I started to sell them because people were like, "Well, can you bake a cake for so-and-so's birthday? Can you bring one in next week for an anniversary?" And I was like, sure. And then I took my little one bedroom apartment in Chicago and turned it into a sort of pound cake factory at that time.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my god, I love that. The original pound cake factory. Awesome. And from there, that sort of led to your idea to start the blog? Or what was the impetus for that?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. I actually had a friend, a really amazing friend, her name is Leslie, who told me to start a blog. She was like, "You're always sharing recipes and you're always baking." She was like, "You should start a blog." And I was like, "Like a food blog?" I mean, there weren't a lot of food blogs around at that time. There were just a few that everyone sort of knew. And this was 10, 11 years ago. So this was still sort of early in terms of food blogs becoming what they are now. There was nothing like this. So when I started, I literally was just like, I bought a template on Etsy for $99 and I used my iPhone to take photos.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. And I wanted to say that I do think of you as an OG [original] blogger, 100%. But it's true. Back in the day when those of us that weren't blogging were looking, we'd be like, oh my gosh, what is this? Recipes on the web on that thing called the computer?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. At the time I was like, I'm not sure what this would even entail. And I was just talking about stories growing up and how my grandmother taught me so much about her different recipes. And I would just add a spin here and there and really sort just let it take shape authentically and just naturally. And I didn't necessarily have anything in mind about what it was going to be. It was just a creative outlet at the time, seriously.
Jessie Sheehan:
So cool. Can you tell us about where the name came from?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. So it's actually twofold. People always say, "Oh well I get it. You're the grandbaby because of my grandmother." She's sort of the muse for my brand. And I was her grandbaby. But the baby cakes, when I was bringing, I used to work for Ebony Magazine and when I was bringing cakes to work, they used to call me ‘baby cakes.’ And so I literally just put the two together and I was grandbaby and then the baby cakes and I was like Grandbaby Cakes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So maybe you started the blog in 2012 ish and then by 2014 you had a cookbook deal. You were able to quit your job. I mean, that is amazing, Jocelyn. What was that like?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
So I will say this. It was very scary. I was not one of those people who had completely blown up by 2014 where it was just, oh, you should definitely quit your job. You've got money rolling in. No, it was definitely a jump off the ledge and just hope something catches me moment. And I was just very much in love with what I was doing in terms of Grandbaby Cakes. And I felt like it was just all-consuming. It was everything I was thinking about. I was waking up with recipe ideas and concepts and I was going to work like, uh, when is lunchtime so I can start working on a blog post? When can I get home so I can test recipes? When is it the weekend so I can shoot recipes and style them and put them on my website? All I wanted to do was work on Grandbaby Cakes, period. It was everything at that point.
And my boss, he literally said to me, he's like, "You need to make a decision." He kind of gave me this really soft ultimatum where he was like, "You do amazing work here, but you need to make a decision because you're not fully here anymore. You're just not." And I thought I was actually doing a great job of hiding the fact. Apparently not. I was not doing a great job at hiding the fact that I was like, this is my side gig, but Grandbaby Cakes is my real deal gig.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, you know what's hilarious is your enthusiasm, which is so infectious. I'm getting excited like I'm the grandbaby here. I can imagine that if that's what you were walking around with at work, your boss is probably like, "Hello? Jocelyn?"
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah, yeah. Anytime. They were like, you've got to stay after work to work on a different event. And I was like, "Oh no. What? This is taking time away from Grandbaby Cakes, my true love." And it was just obvious. It was just so obvious. So I was at the point where I'd received two emails back to back from two different literary agents. And so I decided that maybe that was the sign I needed that, even though I wasn't in the financial place I felt that I probably should have been, but I'm just a risk taker in general. I'm just kind of like, I'll go out there and just see what happens and I can always get another job. My parents, on the other hand, were like, you need to stay where you are. That mortgage of yours won't pay for itself. And I was like, "Oh, it's fine."
So I just literally was like I came in literally two days later and gave my letter of resignation and I was at the Chicago Urban League. I was only there for maybe five months. So I moved around a lot because I was always trying to find exactly where I wanted to be, not knowing it was going to end up being Grandbaby Cakes. So when I turned in my letter of resignation, my boss goes, "I didn't think that you were going to make a decision so quickly. I wanted you to mull on it and think about it." And I was like, "Nope, nope. I'm done. Thanks."
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And I think most people know, but can you tell us a little bit about what we find when we go to grandbabycakes.com? What kind of recipes are there?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Sure. So when it first started, it was all mostly just desserts. I was a dessert-centric website just basically sharing either traditional, generational recipes that were passed down in my family or I was putting my spin on them. So you could find the classic and the modern. And so now I've really ventured into savory. I would think I started that maybe seven years ago, started mixing in more savory. And now you can find pretty much everything, comfort food, lots of Southern inspiration, soul food inspiration, and just food that you remember your grandmother making or something where you just want something that feels comforting, but you want sort of that modern twist. I specialize in that.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's such a great intro to my next question, which is do you want to chat a little bit about your new book? Because that has a savory angle.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. So I was very nervous about writing another book. This time I wanted to do something that just felt so joyful, just so colorful, so vibrant, so me, just my personality splashed across a cookbook. And that's what I think Everyday Grand represents. I wanted people to feel, especially after the pandemic when I was writing it and working on it, I felt the need to truly want to celebrate every single day as it comes and no longer think about just large celebrations, Christmas, Thanksgiving, everything that people just wait to celebrate and wait to have their big feast for and the birthdays. But what about those days in between? The moments where you can just celebrate, hey, you conquered that 5K, or hey, you changed a tire for the first time. How can we figure out how to bring food which brings so much of us together, these amazing recipes, which I am so, so proud of, my first savory cookbook, too. And then celebrate all of those moments, big and small. And so that's what this book is about and I'm super excited about it.
Jessie Sheehan:
You and I are going to be talking about pound cakes. Thank goodness because I'm so excited. And there is one pound cake recipe in the new book, which I was very excited to see.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. Actually it's so funny. There are technically kind of two. I got one where I was almost like, this is sort of one. It's in the breakfast section. But I mean, I eat cake for breakfast, so everyone should eat cake for breakfast. We are celebrating after all.
Jessie Sheehan:
100%, 100%. Why do you think people love pound cake so much?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Oh man. Loaded question. Loaded answer. So I think it's twofold. I think that there is the ability for people to feel like it's accessible. So for those who are baking it, it's not the complication that comes with a layer cake. Some people feel very intimidated by that, intimidated by frosting and icing a cake and making it look beautiful. But with a pound cake, the simplicity of it is truly what makes it shine. The simple ingredients that turn into something impeccable, the taste, the flavor, the melt in your mouth texture, all of it coming together, the buttery texture, all of it really sort of makes the cake shine. So it's like these simple ingredients that make something wonderful and anyone can pull it off. I think that's what really sums it up.
Jessie Sheehan:
I mean, I have to say, something I love at least about your pound cake recipes, I love the short ingredient list. I love the short list of tools. I mean, you need a stand mixer, but you don't need to pull out a lot of different things. And the short assembly, all of that appeals to me. Also being someone who is not, despite the fact that I'm a professional baker, I am not great at decorating cakes. I am not one of the... So I love the ease that a pound cake allows you, you glaze it, you're done.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Glaze it. You're done. You can put powdered sugar on it and serve it with some berries. You're done. It's just one of those things you can throw together and everyone can look like a champ in the kitchen.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back, peeps.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everybody, Radio Cherry Bombe host Kerry Diamond here. I want to tell you a little bit about Jessie's latest book, Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy Peasy Recipes For Exceptionally Scrumptious Sweets and Treats. It's the perfect cookbook for anyone who loves baking from scratch but is pressed for time, which I'm guessing is most of us. All of Jessie's recipes can be assembled in less than 20 minutes with pantry-friendly ingredients and short, easy to follow instructions. Whether you need a sweet treat for yourself for a bake sale, dessert swap, or potluck, Jessie's got you covered.
While Jessie loves a snackable bake, she is not a fan of cleaning up. So most of her recipes come together with nothing more than a bowl, a whisk and a spatula. I love that because I manage to use every bowl utensil I own when I bake. I don't know why that happens, but it does. Jessie's recipes include epic snickerdoodles, raspberry crumb topped pie with easiest ever crust. The dreamiest chocolate peanut butter cup, that's my personal fav, apple pie bars and devil's food snacking cake with marshmallow frosting. Sound yummy? Then pick up a copy of Snackable Bakes for yourself or a beloved baker at your favorite local bookstore.
Jessie Sheehan:
Thank you, Kerry. Back to today's guest. We are going to talk about three pound cakes today, which I won't lie, it was so hard for me to figure out which ones I wanted to talk about because there are brownie swirl pound cakes and cinnamon roll pound cakes and strawberry, cornmeal, peach, caramel. I mean, they're just incredible. 7UP flavored pound cake. I mean I love, love, love them all.
But I wanted to start with sour cream pound cake. And I think of it as basic, but I only mean that in that it's not flavored in any special way because there is absolutely nothing basic about this recipe. I'm going to first maybe go through the ingredients and then we'll talk about the tools and the assembly. Obviously we have butter in this pound cake and you want it to be room temperature. Everybody has a different idea about what is room temp butter. Can you tell us what temp you want our butter to be when we are pound cake making?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
So I say room temperature and I've seen recipes that say softened. And so what I've noticed is if you see someone with butter that looks almost like it's on the brink of melting into a puddle, you touch it and it completely just melts away, it's too soft. I like it to have a tiny bit more heft in structure, but still be softened to the point where if you were to take your thumb and sort of press it into it, you would have an indent. So it's kind of like that middle ground. It's been sitting out for a while, maybe 30 to an hour. It's got enough softness but it is not a complete puddle of melt.
Jessie Sheehan:
Gotcha. That makes sense. And obviously there's sugar in this pound cake. It's granulated. And then I'm curious about cake flour. Can you talk to us about why you like cake flour? And I know you like it sifted. And I know you can make your own. Can you tell us about those three things?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I have played around with different flours depending on the structure of the cake. But for the most part, I do use cake flour, especially for this recipe. It creates more of a tender crumb. It doesn't have as much gluten formation in it. And I think it really sort of makes the difference between the texture you would find that would be even more dense and solid than you would in this cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know you have a way of making it from scratch if somebody didn't have cake flour in the house.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. So you just have to remove, I think it's a tablespoon of flour from all-purpose flour and replace with cornstarch. And then you're going to sift that repeatedly. You're going to make that as light as a feather. You want that flour to really just be very, very light. And it's just going to soften your batter.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we have some eggs, we have some salt. This particular cake, and we'll talk about ones that don't, but this particular cake does have some leavening. It has some baking soda. And I think that's probably maybe because of the sour cream being acidic, maybe that's contributing to that. Tell us though, what does the sour cream add to this cake? And because in some cakes we're going to use cream cheese, we're going to use different things. What does the sour cream add to this particular recipe?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
So for this particular recipe, it adds moisture. It also adds a lovely tang. It gives it a different flavor profile because when you spoke earlier about it sort of being like that plain basic cake, it is. It's a cake that really can take on many flavors, but it also can stand on its own because of that ingredient. It is one that really sort of makes it shine almost in the simplest of ways. It doesn't overpower it, but it really does help it to bring out an additional flavor note.
Jessie Sheehan:
So in terms of tools, we're going to need a stand mixer. You're going to need a flexible spatula. And at least for this cake, you like a fluted Bundt pan. I'm sure you would be okay with someone using a non-fluted one.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
For sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
But can you talk to us about tricks for not having the pound cake stick to the pan? I think peeps get so anxious about that moment when you're going to pop that cake. Well, you've talked about baking spray, which maybe you could tell us, but you've also talked about a homemade cake release.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. Cake release, you may have heard it called cake goop, people. I did a video on Instagram sharing it and a lot of people like The Kitchn and other websites started picking up and showing the video. And people always talk about it. They're like the cake goop, the cake release. And it's homemade. And I keep it in my refrigerator all year round. So it's equal parts flour, shortening, and oil. I like to make a big batch, so I may make one cup of each ingredient and then I make sure that the shortening is kind of melted down. I whisk it all together and then I put it in a nice sealed container that I just keep in the refrigerator and I brush it into my pans whenever I bake. So I brush it into my Bundt pans. Make sure you have really good Bundt pans. Let's talk about that, too.
So that's really important. I know a lot of people who are using Bundt pans from 1962 right now and they're wondering why their cakes are sticking. Keep it, I love the nostalgia. Me, it's Grandbaby Cakes. I get it. Hold onto it for dear life, but just don't bake with it anymore. You need good pans. At a certain point you're going to want to replace it because they will start to stick. So I make sure that my pans are really good. I also like to scald my pans, too. My mom taught me this trick. So I scald them with really, really, really hot water and then dry them out, add my cake release and then I put my batter in and bake. And then I flip around 10 to 15 minutes. I never have sticking.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can I just say I don't even know about the scald technique. I love that.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
It's a mama tip. I have to give that up to my mom. Go ahead, Joyce [Delk]. She's always scalded her pan. She leaves the pan. So while we're making our batter for the cake, she usually has her Bundt pan with hot, very hot water, running into the pan, making sure it's just helping with the release. It just for her, it's a trick and it's always helped me.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. I'm now in love with Joyce. That is amazing. And do you think Joyce does that because it helps melt when you do put in the goop, it helps the go stick because it's a little bit warm?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Gets into all the crevices. It just really just gets into every area. And I really load that goop in there. Don't be shy. You really want to make sure, because I use a pastry brush to make sure I'm getting into all of the different crevices. Especially if you're using a more intricate Bundt pan because there's some gorgeous designs now. You want to just make sure you're getting in every single nook and cranny.
Jessie Sheehan:
I got you. And then just two more quick questions because this is so fascinating. First of all, do you have a brand that you want to share? Are you always buying blank brand or do you think there are lots of great Bundt pan brands? Just make sure it's not scratched, et cetera.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I will definitely call it out. I love Nordic Ware. Oh my gosh, they make stunning, stunning pans. Absolutely stunning pans. And they're really high quality, too. So I love all of the intricate designs. I use them a lot. But I really love the standard classic anniversary pan, that heritage style. It always looks so clean and elegant and I use it a lot, especially with the sour cream cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm obsessed with scalding and gooping, but in terms of the goop…
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I love that name. I love that term, the scald and goop. I love it.
Jessie Sheehan:
The scald and goop. Let's take it on the road. I think it's like our band. The goop, are you kind of melting the vegetable shortening literally or just whisking it to loosen it and then adding the oil and the flour?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Well I actually throw it in the microwave for a couple seconds and then it just makes everything really come together really smoothly, especially if it's in its hardened structure. I really like to just melt. So it's at the point when I've actually whisked everything together, it's basically all melted. And then after a while it starts to set up and it gets cold. I put it in my refrigerator and it sets back up, the structure of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you use it straight from the fridge?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I use it straight from the fridge.
Jessie Sheehan:
Awesome. I just want to say, I mean, the assembly, as you well know, is super simple. Now in this cake for this particular pound cake, you're mixing butter and sugar in your stand mixer for about three to four minutes. And you want to tell people what they're looking for in terms of what you want that sugar and butter to look like when it's time to add the other ingredients?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah, sure. So I like to tell them a nice light and fluffy sort of consistency. The butter itself has almost become very pale. If you want to use the finger trick too, you can take a little bit and sort of move it around between your fingers and you want to make sure that the sugar has really sort of disintegrated and melted into that butter, so it's not really grainy. If you're still getting a very grainy consistency, then it probably needs a little bit more creaming.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect. Perfect. And then you're adding your eggs and your flour. You say to add that twice and very slowly. Is that partly because you don't want the flour to explode all over your kitchen?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah, it's all vanity here. It's all vanity. We still want to look cute while we're baking. We do not want the flour. We just powdered down while we're baking. We still want to look cute. That's why, vanity totally.
Jessie Sheehan:
100%. So important. People don't give that enough credit, the vanity that we need when we're baking. I love it. Then you're adding salt and soda, your sour cream and vanilla and baking for about an hour 15, an hour 20.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a hefty cake.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know. People don't always realize how long. I say this about pie, too. People don't realize that it takes a long time to properly bake some things. Doesn't mean you're over baking, it's just how you're getting it perfect. When you stick a toothpick or a cake tester, are you looking for a few moist crumbs? Are you looking for a clean tester?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I like a few moist crumbs.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too. Yeah.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I'm in the few moist crumbs camp because if there's one thing I hate, it's an overbaked cake with that sort of heat distribution. As soon as I take it out and it's going to wait another 10 minutes before I flip and that pan is still very hot. That heat is still baking your cake somewhat. And so if you wait until that cake is totally, completely baked and then take it out for another 10 minutes, you are losing some moisture there.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you alluded to this before, but basically you want to take it out, let it rest about 10 minutes and then you do your flip.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. And I like to go around the outside with a butter knife and really sort of remove the cake just to make sure it's going to completely come out. Nothing comes in. So I kind of slot that knife into the Bundt pan and just move around the grooves.
Jessie Sheehan:
I want to move on to cream cheese pound cake.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Oh yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
At least one year, you made it almost more than 100 times.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I did.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just thought we'd flag some of the differences because I think it can be cool and a little confusing sometimes for home bakers like, well this is a different recipe, but why? Why isn't it exactly the same except for cream cheese. So I thought it would be interesting to kind of dig deep on that. So the butter is the same, even the same amount for each cake. But you add a teeny bit of oil, which, first of all, I love because what I realize you and I have in common, because you say in Grandbaby Cakes how you love butter and oil. But I love this. If you don't need the flavor of the butter for one of your cakes, for instance, be it pound or something else, you're an oil girl. And I am so oil all the time. I'm always trying to explain to people. Can you talk to us a little bit about why the oil is in this particular cake and why? I know you're speaking for me so I'm just going to say it. Can you tell everyone why we love oil-based cakes?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
For this cake, what I noticed around the 85th time of baking it... No, I'm kidding. So having baked the cake, this cake has a different type of density. It's very different from the sour cream cake. The cream cheese doesn't have as much moisture that the sour cream lends to the cake. So I wanted to figure out a way to add additional moisture. So I played around with shortening, which is a fine substitute because it does a lot of the same thing. And then I started adding oil right into the batter to sort of just replace some of the moisture that I usually would get with the sour cream. I wanted to sort of add that back into this batter. And I think it works really wonderfully.
In terms of the oil, why I love oil-based cakes, I mean, I love a moist cake, period. And I've always, when it comes to my chocolate-based cake, red velvet, I've noticed that because I can add additional flavors to that, I don't need the butter. And so I really rely on the oil because I just really love the texture of that cake. And it's just so delicious and it's just so moist. And so when I get a chance, when it's more, you do need the butter in that cake and I sort of still need that flavor, I like to just add some oil into it, whether it's a yellow cake where I know the butter is key to flavor. I just add some additional oil to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
The other thing that's interesting about this recipe versus the sour cream one is that this one has no leavening, whereas the sour cream one does. And because of that, so I'm kind of moving from ingredients over to assembly because the tools are basically the same, it's a longer creaming process. It's up to seven minutes. Can you talk to us about that? Because I think that's the kind of thing people would be like, "Why can't I do three to four? I did three to four with the other one."
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. So this cake, and I get asked this all the time, people are like, you forgot the baking powder. You forgot the baking powder. I was like, no I didn't. Nope, nope, nope. It's unnecessary because the creaming period really is so long, it really helps to aerate the cake. I am whipping so much air into the cake. I also use my whisk attachment, which a lot of people don't. They love to use a paddle. My preference is a whisk attachment when I'm making cake batters. I really like to add as much air as possible to my cake batter. And I find that by whipping it with that attachment, it helps.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's amazing. I don't know how I missed that. For all cakes or just pound cakes?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
It's mostly all cakes actually.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I love that. And you'll do whisk all the way through? Or do you change to paddle when you add flour?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
No, I just whisk it all the way through.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. Scalding, gooping, whisking. The list goes on, peeps.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes, it's a personal preference. I will of course use a paddle. When I'm done, I sort of go through with my spatula and just sort of scrape the bottom and just make sure everything gets in. But I just really like the air, the additional air added to cake using the whisk.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then in terms of this cake, the rest of the assembly is pretty much the same-
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. It's pretty much the same.
Jessie Sheehan:
... As what we did with the sour cream and pretty much with the baking and the cooling and the inverting. And I did want to mention, we're not going to talk about it, but there is another pound cake recipe on the site, which is a butter pound cake with heavy whipping cream, which is also just one of my... I just love putting cream into a cake, whipping that in and you're just getting even more kind of rich and lush.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. I love pound cake. I mean...
Jessie Sheehan:
So good. I also wanted to talk briefly about perhaps the best lemon pound cake on the internet, your Grandbaby Cakes’ lemon pound cake. I love the headnote for this one. So I've just got to read it. I've earned the title of pound cake master. I was taught by none other than my big mama, a woman who could whip up the perfect one in a minute from what seems like thin air. I just love that.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Oh my gosh. And you know how long ago I wrote that? That was so fun to hear you read. I think that recipe came out six or seven years ago. Probably longer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love it. I love it. So what's interesting about this cake, which I just love, is it's basically the cream cheese pound cake that we just talked about. But there is a fantastic secret ingredient that I want you to tell everyone about.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. So for this cake, I add in lemon pudding, the instant lemon pudding. So what I actually noticed and I started doing this a while back, with my cream cheese, my plain cream cheese, sometimes I would dabble and add a vanilla pudding just because I wanted to sometimes. And I noticed with doctored cakes, a lot of people, there used to be sort of this hack where they would take a box cake mix and they would add pudding to that. Or you would find the box mixes that already have the pudding in them. And it says it right on the front cover. And I was like, what if I put pudding right into a pound cake, a homemade cake? How would that sort of change it? And I was like, I'm going to try that with the lemon cake. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So good. So good.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that so much. And I was going to ask this, but I think you just answered it for me. So if we have a vanilla cake, we could throw in a box of vanilla pudding or you have a chocolate cake.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
I do it all the time. I do it all the time.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. First of all, I love, I'm obsessed with old, kind of hacky types of things. I'm obsessed with boxed cake mix. It's like every cake I make, I am trying to make it taste like it came from a box. People think that's insane.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yes. Exactly. And it's like, what are the ways in which you can do that? And there's some ways to play around with it for sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that there's lemon pudding in this and then also a little bit of zest, and then from the lemon. And then-
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
So it makes you pucker a little bit. And then that pudding, it adds more moisture, too. I mean because you're not really making it, but as soon as you add it into the batter and it bakes up, it's basically like pudding was in your cake. And so it gives it such a wonderful texture and flavor and it just sort of melts in your mouth and you get that nice sort of zesty lemon. It's great.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm literally, I'm obsessed. Yum. I'm just going to leave it at yum. And then finally, I mean, I'm so glad we had time to get to this one because this one's super fun. I wanted to talk about Mama's 7UP pound cake with you, which I watched you make this, I think it was during the pandemic, maybe towards the end, but on the Today Show, which was really fun to see you do. And I think you said you might have first baked the cake when you were nine. And it's your mom's favorite, is that all right?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
It's the first cake my mother taught me to bake. It's the first one I learned to bake completely on my own. And that's why I always tell people, if you want to start with a cake or you feel just intimidated by baking, you can make this cake. I was making this cake when I was nine. You got this.
And it's my mom's favorite cake. It's also sort of her specialty. So whenever we would go to church functions or we'd go to someone's home, my mom would always bring a 7UP pound cake. And she's very specific about it because people will say, "Oh, lemon-lime pound cake?" And she says, "No. It's 7UP.” You do not use any other lemon lime soda substitute. It's just 7UP. She just has an affinity for the specific flavor of 7UP and what it does to the cake, the carbonation of it. It sort of just aerates it. And it just gives it such a wonderful flavor. And it's also very, very moist. It's also very, very delicious. And it's also a testament to all of the things that you can do to make pound cakes so different. Every single one can taste completely different just from a change of literally one ingredient.
Jessie Sheehan:
So in other words, and this was kind of like I'm just the weird science mind, which we all as bakers have to have, even though we're like, what? Me? I'm not a scientist. It's kind of cool that the 7UP is really taking the place of the cream cheese or the sour cream. That's the quote. Often you'll break a baking recipe down, your fat, your sugar, your liquid as it were. And the sour cream and the cream cheese are kind of the "liquids" in the other recipes. But here, it is soda, which I adore. And that this one, kind of the cream cheese, has no leaving. So all of those bubbles are bringing, I mean, so thrilled and excited by that. And then it must be sort of less, not that dense is bad, but it must be sort of light in that it doesn't have that cream cheese. And it has all those bubbles.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
It's very, very light. And that's what I like about pound cakes, very similar ingredients with the exception of one. You switch out one and you get a totally different result in terms of the texture, in terms of the crumb. The crumb is very different. I mean, it even looks different. And also that soda really does a lot in terms of flavor. You would just think, oh, it doesn't have that much lemon lime flavor. But when you add in the additional extracts, it really just sings. I love that cake so much. It's still one of my favorite cakes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. It sounds so delicious. And I'm embarrassed to say I am not on the regular purchasing 7UP, but I might have to start so that I can make this cake.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
You said, I'm embarrassed to say.
Jessie Sheehan:
But it just sounds incredible to me. And again, because this one has no leavening, like the cream cheese one, it's another kind of seven minute creaming process.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. Long creaming period. And then we also let that aeration, the bubbles and the carbonation in the soda sort of just lifted even more.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, that is it in terms of the recipes themselves. But I'd love for you to just talk about the different ways you can serve pound cake. Because you've talked about slices for breakfast or packing them in a lunch box I bet, or whipped cream berries. Talk to us about, because this is what's beautiful about all these cakes, not that I need to tell you because you know. There is a simplicity to all of them. There is this unbelievable rich flavor we know. But then because of the simplicity, you can do so many things when you actually serve them. Can you tell us a teeny bit about how you would do that?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah, so let's take for instance the sour cream pound cake, the basic in terms of just really nice, lovely, plain flavored pound cake that just holds up with anything. That's a cake that I have served literally with just a sprinkle of powdered sugar and a dollop of whipped cream and berries during the summer. I've also served it with homemade caramel sauce. So I have a very famous caramel cake called The Real Deal Caramel Cake. And that caramel takes about an hour to two hours to make. It's my Aunt Beverly's caramel. So what I have done is, I've always sort of, if I half the recipe, I can probably do the caramel in about 45 minutes to an hour, and then I drizzle that over the top. And it's wonderful. My husband just asked me to make it for Thanksgiving. I was like, "On top of all the 25 other desserts we're having?"
So there's that. And then also, you could add simple glazes. You can add a simple icing with confectioners' sugar and you could add lemon juice. You could add any type of juice. You could add water. Sometimes it can just be as simple as that. And then you could also add a ganache on top, a cream cheese icing. That I love to add as well. I feel like with the pound cakes, it really sort of depends on my mood. If I want something lighter, I'll skip the glaze, I'll skip the icing and I'll serve it plain and it's just wonderful. And if I want something more decadent, that's when I reach for the caramel.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. And it sounds like you could also, and I think you do this with the 7UP cake and I think with the lemon too, but you can also pull an ingredient from the cake to make the glaze. Is the glaze for the 7UP cake made with 7UP. Am I remembering that right?
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah. Yep. And you really taste the 7UP there too because it's fresh out the can and you just added some sugar to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I'm not sure I've ever done it, but I bet you could make like a sour cream confectioners’ sugar glaze.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Oh, 100%. You should try.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. That would be so tangy.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Yeah, it would be so tangy. That would be nice. That would be really nice. Thin it out a little bit. That would be really nice.
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, Jocelyn, I cannot thank you enough for doing a deep dive with me on pound cake. I mean, I just, all I can say is you are my cherry pie.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Oh, that's so sweet.
Jessie Sheehan:
Thank you so much for joining me.
Jocelyn Delk Adams:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Jessie Sheehan:
You can find the recipe for Jocelyn's 7UP pound cake on cherrybombe.com. And peeps, I've made it and it's excellent. And you can find lots of other great recipes of Jocelyn's on the Grandbaby Cakes website. If there's no time to bake, head over to the Williams-Sonoma website for Jocelyn's ready-made cakes, including her cinnamon roll pound cake. Yum.
Don't miss a single episode of She's My Cherry Pie. Sign up for the Cherry Bombe newsletter at cherrybombe.com to learn about all the episodes and other news from Cherry Bombe HQ. She's My Cherry Pie and Radio Cherry Bombe are a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Thanks to the team at CityVox Studios, executive producers Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and assistant producer Jenna Sadhu. Peeps, thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie. And happy baking.