By Request Betty Shimabukuro

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Pound cake starts with frozen juice

Today's key ingredient is frozen juice concentrate, specifically guava, which makes possible today's recipe, a guava pound cake.

This could actually be turned into a lilikoi pound cake or a POG pound cake -- depending on which juice is in your freezer, or on sale this week.

Lori Muramoto wrote in search of the guava pound cake once produced by Europa Bakery under the Iwilei Bakery label, but said that after all these years, "any guava pound cake will be great."

I poked around a bit and didn't find a ready-made recipe, but I did find a recipe for Apple Cider Pound Cake that was easily adapted by sliding the guava juice in for the cider.

The recipe was on the Web site www.recipegoldmine.com, which you really should visit if you are a pound cake aficionado. There must be 150 variations on the pound-cake theme at this site, including pina colada, peppermint and peanut butter.

Pound cake, by the way, is called that because it traditionally was made with a pound each of butter, sugar and flour. This made for a pretty solid cake. These days it means butter, sugar and flour in roughly equal proportions by weight, with a leavener such as baking soda to lighten it up. It also takes a lot of eggs.

This guava version bakes up lightly pink, which made it nice for Valentine's Day. It calls for equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour -- 3/4 pound each.

A note on baking pans: This recipe makes three loaves. You can also bake it in a 10-inch tube pan (better for showing off) or in 6 mini-pans (3-by-6-inch), which is a good size for gifts.

Guava Pound Cake

1-1/2 cups butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup frozen guava juice concentrate, thawed, undiluted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 3 4-by-8 loaf pans.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

Combine flour and baking powder. Keeping mixer running, gradually add dry ingredients to butter/sugar mixture, alternating with juice. Add vanilla.

Pour into prepared pans. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Variation: For a lighter cake, replace 1/2 cup of butter with shortening.

Nutritional information unavailable.