Chippy's Pound Cake

Baker: Garikai Campbell

Recipe: Joyce "Chippy" Campbell

This was always going to be part of the gift basket. It is a cake I have been trying to perfect for a long time, and by perfect, I mean get to be as good as my Aunt Chippy makes it! 

My father's family is from Goochland, VA and growing up, one of the great things we used to do was head south (from New Brunswick, New Jersey ... or way back, all the way from Syracuse, NY) to "the country." When visiting Goochland, it always felt like I was related to the whole town. My father's mother was one of thirteen children who hailed from there and so there were loads of first, second, and more distant cousins in the area.

My uncle Robert was a landing spot--one of the greatest story tellers ever--and his wife, my Aunt Chippy was one of the greatest cooks around, in an area filled with great cooks. Her potato salad, corn pudding, and pound cake were legendary. I have never tried messing with that potato salad, but I have cooked the other two about a million times. I still don't feel like I get my pound cake quite as good as hers, but I keep trying.

Every time I make it, I feel like it takes me back to arriving in Goochland after a long drive and seeing that cake, always wrapped up in plastic wrap like it was sealed for life. There would be no stopping us getting into that cake no matter what time it was when we arrived.

Pictured here with my cousin Marshall, Chippy has been cooking at a nearby country club for as long as I can remember. I keep thinking that one day, I would love to start a "Chippy's Pound Cake" brand and sell those things, but it is no easy cake to make. Each one is a real labor of love, so I'd first have to figure out how to make them in a way that doesn't cost $100 per cake and scales to mass production well! :-)

I think this Christmas, I made about 10 cakes. My boys said that every time they came into the kitchen, I was making cake. It smelled like cake for at least a week, if not two weeks here! Good thing we gave 90% of the cake away because these cakes are not exactly slimming--butter, sugar, and eggs galore.

I do hope that everyone who got some cake enjoyed it! It was made with lots of love!

Where to buy

• Maybe one day: ME :-)