Desserts are a bit of an odd thing in our house. Dear Husband and I love them, but sporadically. We have gone weeks without eating a proper dessert. A chocolate square here and there, but nothing that could be called dessert. Partly it's because there's only two people who "don't eat very much"* so if I make a whole cake, we either get sick of it or have to throw half of it away. So I've started trying three different strategies: 1) ice cream 2) things that can be easily doled out, such as cookies 3) 1-2 person desserts.
In the last category, pound cake of all things is a shocking easy and useful base. A pound cake is defined not by a particular recipe, but particular ratio of ingredients. An equal amount by weight of eggs, butter, sugar, flour and a dash of flavoring. Which practically means any multiple of 2 oz (the weight of an egg) can be made into a cake. A two-ounce cake turns out to be the perfect amount of batter to make 2 small cakes or a largish 1 serving cake.
And it is versatile. Besides the basic cake, which is itself delicious, you can use the batter to make caramel cakes, peach caramel cakes, upside down cakes, marble cakes, short cakes, mini trifles, pretty much any cake-based dessert. So long as you have softened butter, you can have cake in about 30 minutes.
You need more? Double it, triple it. More than a pound per ingredient, you might want to just make two batches.
Delicious versatility.
*Heard from every relative and friend who has seen us eat not at Thanksgiving
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