Simple pound cake

The idea of pound cake is to mix together butter, sugar, eggs and flour at 1:1:1:1 ratio. The best way is to weigh all ingredients. 

I prefer to start from eggs, because size is always different and to get it exactly say 200 g is difficult task.

Today I take 3 eggs - 170 g

Butter (room temperature) - 170 g

Sugar - 170 g

Flour - 170 g

pinch of salt

vanilla extract - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Beat butter with sugar and salt in a mixer till light and fluffy, approximately 5-7 minutes.
2. Beat eggs one by one, do not rush, mixture has to absorb eggs. If you put too many eggs at once mixture will separate.
3. Add vanilla extract.
4. Finally mix in flour. You can do it using mixer (on the lowest speed) or by hand. Do not overmix or your cake will be dense.
5. Transfer to buttered loaf form and bake at 350 F until ready (put thin knife or wooden skewer in the center, if it comes out clean it's ready). Cooking time depends on many factors: the size of the cake, your oven, cake form you use... Mine was in the oven for 40 min.
6. When it's ready take out of the cake form and let cool on a rack. 

Gluten Free Pancakes

These pancakes are great alternative for the people having issues with gluten. It tastes delicious and you would never guess that they are GF.

Ingredients:

• rice flour white or brown 1 cup
• tapioca flour (also known as tapioca starch) 3 tablespoons
• potato starch (not flour) 1/3 cup
• dry buttermilk powder 4 tablespoons
• sugar 2 tablespoons
• baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoons
• baking soda 1/2 teaspoon
• salt 1/2 teaspoon
• xanthan gum 1/2 teaspoon
• eggs large 2
• canola oil (or other neutral vegetable oil) 4 tablespoons
• water 2 cups

 Directions:

1. Mix or sift together all dry ingredients.
2. Whisk eggs with 1 cup of water, then stir to dry ingredients. Add second cup of water and mix well.
3. Add canola oil and mix. At this point mixture should be consistency of batter with few lumps.
4. Heat iron cast skillet (iron cast is the best for cooking pancakes, if you don't have one, you may use a heavy skillet or griddle) over medium-high heat.
5. Spoon batter (1/3 - 1/2 cup) onto lightly oiled skillet and cook until bubbles form on the surface and surface become not glossy.
6. Flip and continue to cook till golden brown on the bottom.
7. Serve warm with condiments of your choice.