Half Baked: pound cake

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Spring has sprung here in the Southeast. I don't know what that means to you but for me it means strawberry season! For many years, my parents grew strawberries on a commercial level. So as you can imagine, I've eaten a lot of strawberries, in almost anyway imaginable. One of my favorite ways to use strawberries is to macerate them. Are you impressed by that term?? It's not nearly as impressive as it sounds. It's just sliced berries with sugar that sit until the juices release. We like to mash the berries slightly (I use a potato masher). We called mashed strawberries....fancy, I know, but that's just how we are around here. At this point you can do anything with the mashed strawberries. They're delicious on top of ice cream, yogurt, pancakes, the list goes on, but pile them on top of a hunk of buttery pound cake maybe a bit of freshly whipped cream...simply wonderful!

Last month's Southern Living featured a pound cake with strawberries swirled through it, on the cover. When I read through the recipe it sounded delicious but called for a strawberry glaze for the swirl. I'm not a fan of strawberry glaze. It has a kind of artificially taste that I don't like. I decided to cook down some berries and make my own glaze to swirl in the cake. I was going to strain the berries and make a syrup more like the original recipe called for but I decided I liked the idea of having strawberry pieces baked into the cake. I could have my mashed berries baked right into the cake...perfect!

Strawberry Swirl Pound Cake

Source: Nancy H. Test, West Chester, Ohio, Southern Living

MARCH 2011 (adapted)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
3 cups sugar
1 (8-oz.) package cream cheese, softened
6 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2/3 cup strawberry glaze
1 (6-inch) wooden skewer

Method:
Preheat oven to 350°. Beat butter at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add cream cheese, beating until creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Gradually add flour to butter mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition, stopping to scrape bowl as needed. Stir in the lemon zest, almond, and vanilla extracts. Pour one-third of batter into a greased and floured *10-inch 14 cup tube pan (about 2 2/3 cups batter). Dollop 8 rounded teaspoonfuls strawberry glaze over batter, and swirl with wooden skewer. Repeat procedure once, and top with remaining third of batter.

Bake at 350° for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 1 hour).

Notes:*the original recipe said to use a 10-inch 14 cup tube pan but I used my 10-inch 12 cup bundt pan.

Strawberry Swirl

Ingredients:
2 cups strawberries(about 1 lb), quartered
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon corn starch

Method:
Combine the water, strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a large saucepan on high heat. Stir and bring up to a boil.
After the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to medium low. Cook for 5-8 minutes, until the strawberries have completely broken down. As the strawberries soften, use a wooden spoon or potato masher to break up the berries. (At this point you could strain the strawberries through a sieve for a smooth glaze, but I decided to leave the bits of strawberry in mine.)
Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl. Then, pour into the strawberries.
Increase heat to high, and continue to whisk the mixture until it thickens and the cornstarch becomes clear and loses it's cloudy appearance, approximately 3-5 minutes.
Remove from heat, and pour into separate bowl to cool down. Use 3/4 a cup to swirl in the cake. Any leftovers are great served along with the cake.

This is a BIG cake when it's done. With that lovely swirl of berries running through it, this cake would be perfect for our family Easter gathering. Can't wait for an excuse to make this again!

Strawberry swirl!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Blueberry Lime Pound Cake

I have a confession to make. I have a slight problem with hoarding. Well that's a bit of an exaggeration, I only hoard one thing, old cooking magazines. I keep a few Bon Appetit's and a Martha Stewart Living, here and there, but mostly it's limited to Fine Cooking magazines. For some reason, I can't stand to throw them away. I love every issue. They only publish a new magazine every other month, which is probably a good thing because with only six issues a year, it would take a long time for me to make it on to "Hoarders: Buried Alive!"
Actually, recently in a fit of spring cleaning, I did part with quite a few issues. I kept only the ones that with lots of recipes I want to make, or had really pretty pictures... Yes I know I can look up old recipes online, but it's way more fun to grab a cold drink and flip through a stack of magazines. Thank goodness I still had my Jun/July 2008 issue, because it was chock full of great blueberry recipes. I remembered there were several recipes in that issue that I wanted to make. I had dogeared the page to this recipe a long time ago and I decided now was the time to put that hoarded issue to good use!

Blueberry Lime Pound Cake
Source: Fine Cooking: by Nicole Rees (adapted)
Printable Recipe
Ingredients:
For the cake:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp. baking power
scant 1/2 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 tsp. finely grated lime zest
*6 oz. mascarpone or cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 pint blueberries, room temperature, not cold from the refrigerator
For the glaze:
4 oz. (1 cup) confectioners’ sugar
2 Tbs. fresh lime juice; more as needed
1/2 tsp. lime zest

*Note: I used mascarpone because I had it and didn't have any cream cheese on hand. It was delicious in this cake!

Method:
Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan.
Make the cake: Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Stir the lime zest into the sifted flour mixture.
With a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer, beat the butter and mascarpone or cream cheese in a large bowl on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the sugar mixture and beat on medium until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. With the mixer still running, add the whole eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and stopping the mixer to scrape the bowl twice. Beat in the egg yolk. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture. Stop the mixer one last time to scrape the bowl and then beat at medium speed until the batter is smooth and light, about 20 seconds. With a rubber spatula, gently fold the blueberries into the batter.
Pour the batter into the bundt pan, spreading it evenly with the spatula. Lightly tap the pan against the counter to eliminate any air pockets. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes. Set the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes and then invert onto the rack, remove the pan, and let cool completely.

Glaze the cake: In a small bowl, whisk the confectioners’ sugar, lime zest, and lime juice together until smooth. The glaze should be thin enough to pour. If not, add more lime juice, 1 tsp. at a time. Put a baking sheet under the rack to catch drips and drizzle the glaze over the top and sides of the cake. Let the glaze set before transferring to a cake plate.