Mini Vanilla Bean Pound Cakes

A few weeks ago, someone asked me what my favorite cake was. I started thinking of all the incredible cakes I've made in the last year, but it occurred to me that my very favorite cake is a simple pound cake. And so that was my answer. Eating this cake reminded me of why I love a pound cake.
Not only was it rich, buttery, and delicious, but it was probably also the easiest cake I've made so far, not counting the small hassle of scraping the vanilla beans out of the pod. (The flat blade of my 7-inch Santoku knife did this so easily that it was only a very small hassle).

I like to keep a small stock of vanilla beans from Penzeys, but I didn't have any on hand. My New Guinea beans from Whole Foods actually worked quite well.

I was excited about using my new disposable loaf pans, but I became doubtful when I looked at them more carefully. First, they're paper. I'm pretty sure my home ec. teacher advised against putting paper in the oven. Nonsense, I told myself--you put parchment paper in the oven all the time, and it's never caught on fire. I was doing a good job of reassuring myself until I noticed the little pinholes in the bottom of the pans. Doubtful again, I wondered whether the batter wouldn't leak out of those little holes. Nonsense, I said again. Why would they put holes in the bottom of the pans if batter would leak out? That would be stupid. So I sprayed them with Baker's Joy and forgot about the possibility of leakage.

The batter, as Rose warns, is not completely smooth--it's a little curdly looking. All will be well, she reassures, and she is right. In addition to the two baby loaves, there's enough batter to make two baby cupcakes. I just put mine in custard cups without the paper.

Pop all four pans in the oven, and then make the vanilla-cognac syrup. The recipe calls for (not surprisingly) vanilla cognac. "No!"  I said. I refuse to make another trip to the liquor store for another specialty liqueur. I have cognac; I have vanilla. Add them together, and you have vanilla cognac, or close enough for government cakes.

The syrup was tasty right out of the pan, and I daubed it on the cupcakes before the loaves were done. Then, despite the admonition to wait 24 hours before eating, we gobbled the cupcakes up right there and then. And mighty good they were. Unlike the Genoise Rose, where the difference in taste right after baking and 24 hours later was pronounced, I thought the pound cake was just as good right away.
The loaf cakes took about 20 minutes longer to bake. I used the knife to make a neat slash in one of the cakes.

I left the other one untouched, so its crack developed au naturel.

I like the looks of both of them.
Oh, remember the holes in the bottom of the paper loaf pans? The ones I told myself not to worry about?

When I took the loaves out of the oven, I noticed eight of these little megalith-like things on the bottom of the oven. Sort of like a mini-Stonehenge, only instead of being made from stones, these were made from pound cake batter. Tiny drops of batter must have oozed from the little holes, with each new drop forming a new circle on top of the last one.
Bless Google's heart, it told me, via a 2000 NYT article by Marian Burros, that the holes are in the bottom of the pan are there to provide quicker and more even baking, and that if you have trouble with leakage, you should just nest the baking pan inside another disposable pan. Or you could just put a cookie sheet or piece of foil on a lower rack. Or you could collect pound cake dolmens.
I bought raspberries and blueberries and the Farmer's Market this morning, and just scattered a few of them around slices of pound cake, which Jim and I had for afternoon tea. Jim is the sole member of my tasting panel this week, because I gave one loaf away, we'd already eaten the cupcakes, and we (I) didn't want to share the rest. I'm sorry to say that pound cake makes me greedy.