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Another From the King Arthur Playbook – Flour’s Original Pound Cake

I have to admit, I have a great love of pound cake. I know for some people it seems to be plain and not very exciting, but I love the texture and flavor of a good pound cake. It can go nicely as a dessert for just about any occasion, can be dressed up with fresh fruit or just whipped cream and even allows for some variation of flavors by adding different extracts, alcohols or flavorings. Another great thing about pound cake is that it is relatively easy to make, which is perfect for someone like me that is not the best baker in the world. The ingredients are all pretty basic and things you usually have around the house anyway so you can even put one together on relatively short notice to have a nice dessert or snack for surprise guests or for something to bring to someone’s home or party. While I was looking through the latest King Artur Flour catalog, I came across this recipe for their traditional pound cake and thought it would be a very good time to give the new oven a try and check it out.

Traditional Original Pound Cake

1 cup (16 tablespoons, 8 ounces) butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon brandy, sherry, rum or other liqueur or extract of your choice (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 10 to 12-cup bundt pan.In a large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is very light. Beat in the sugar gradually and then add the eggs, one at a time, until they are blended in. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and beat the mixture until it is very light and fluffy.

In a large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is very light. Beat in the sugar gradually and then add the eggs, one at a time, until they are blended in. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and beat the mixture until it is very light and fluffy.

In a separate large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt.

In another small bowl, whisk together the milk, vanilla extract, and alcohol or extract of your choice, if using.

Alternately add the wet and dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, starting the process with the flour mixture and ending with the flour mixture. Stir the mixture to combine the ingredients after each addition. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing out the top with a spatula.

Bake the cake for 60 to 65 minutes, until it springs back when pressed lightly on the top, and a long toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. If the cake appears to be browning too quickly, tent it with foil for the final 15 minutes of baking.

Remove the cake from the oven and loosen its edges in the pan. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then carefully turn the cake out of the pan onto a wire rack to cool. Slice and serve the cake the same day or store the cake, wrapped in plastic or wrapped well in plastic if you intend to freeze it for longer storage.

The cake goes perfectly with ice cream, fruit, whipped cream or just by itself (which is the way I like it personally). I enjoy the cake with a nice cup of coffee, and it is perfect after dinner or even as a mid-morning snack. The cake is rich and buttery and has excellent flavor. I had made cakes before where I added flavoring like lemon to it or added alcohol for extra flavor, but the plain version works best for me. Freezing the cake is easy and lets you have a quick dessert for those last-minute guests. You can warm it up quickly in just a few minutes in a 250-degree oven until it is just hot, about 8 to 12 minutes, and it will be perfect. It is always one of my favorite, go-to cakes and this one is pretty tried and faithful to go with for any time.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

Lo and Behold, a Lovely Dessert – Lemon Drizzle Cake

24 Oct

Trying to find something to make for desserts is not always an easy thing, especially during the week when you may not have a lot of time to put something together. However, my philosophy is that anything you make at home, no matter how small, is going to be worth the effort and taste good. Unfortunately we are not lucky enough to a local bakery around here, leaving the only real choices for dessert to the supermarket bakery and whatever is on the shelf in the frozen food aisle, so that leaves making something yourself when you want to satisfy a sweet tooth. For me, I have always liked just a plain piece of pound cake. Pound cake makes a nice, easy dessert that goes well with a cup of coffee or tea, a little iced cream, some fresh fruit or even just by itself. When I saw this recipe from Melissa Clark of New York Times Cooking for a lemon drizzle cake, it seemed like the perfect combination of an easy dessert to make with a nice cake with some awesome lemon zing to it.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened, more for greasing pan

2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

5 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 1/2 lemons

2 ¼ cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

¼ milk

Heat the oven to 325 degrees and place a rack in the center. Grease a 9-by-12-inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper, allowing a 2-inch overhang on the long sides of the pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and half of the sugar (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until they are incorporated, then beat in the milk, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary (the mixture will look curdled, and that’s O.K.). Mix in the flour mixture until the ingredients are combined, then scrape the batter into the prepared baking pan, smoothing the top of the batter.

Bake the cake until it is golden brown and springy, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then use the paper overhang to lift the cake out of the pan; transfer the cake to a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet and carefully remove the paper.

While the cake bakes, in a small bowl mix together the remaining half of the sugar (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) and enough lemon juice to make a runny mixture. While the cake is still warm, spoon the sugar mixture evenly over the top. The cake has to be cooled slightly to prevent the topping from melting, but warm enough so that it soaks into the cake, leaving a crunchy sugar coat on top. Let the cake cool, then cut it into squares.

As long as you have a few lemons on hand, the rest of the ingredients are things you likely have around the kitchen so that you could put this one together during the week if you like. The cake itself is much like a typical pound cake, but once you add the lemon topping to it and it glazes over the cake is bursting with flavor. If you like lemon, this one is for you. The cake ends up with a nice crunch once the glaze sets and cools, making each piece of the cake a lemony treat. I have loved having it with a cup of coffee for dessert or even a little piece for breakfast in the morning. This makes a pretty large cake in a 9 x 13 pan (I don’t have a 9 x 12 pan and have never seen one myself, but 9 x 13 worked just fine for me) so it is great for parties or to bring over to someone’s house for a potluck or you could even try freezing some of it and use it for different occasions. It’s definitely one worth remembering.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

7 Comments

Posted by MikeG on October 24, 2016 in Cakes

Tags: lemon drizzle cake, lemon drizzle pound cake, lemon pound cake, New York Times Cooking lemon drizzle cake, pound cake, pound cake recipe

50 of Our Favorite Cake Recipes (Yep… 50!) Slideshow – Bon Appétit

01 Mar

50 of Our Favorite Cake Recipes (Yep… 50!) Slideshow – Bon Appétit.

It’s the weekend and perhaps you have some free time to do a little baking this week to make a nice dessert for Sunday dinner. You can never have too many great cake recipes to fall back. You need different cakes for different occasions, so here Bon Appetit has put together 50 of their favorite cake recipes for you to cover everything from special occasions to a simple coffee cake or pound cake and everything in between. Check it out!

Positively Perfect Pound Cake

28 May

We’ve done a lot of cooking and baking over the last few days, and it has given me quite a few recipes to work with. One of the things we made this past weekend was a classic pound cake recipe that I got from America’s Test Kitchen. I love just a plain piece of pound cake with a cup of coffee or maybe even a simple dollop of whipped cream or a little bit of fruit on the side. It’s a great thing to make it and doesn’t take a lot of work on your part so you could easily make one and bring it to a party or a friend’s home.

Pound Cake

1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) butter, melted and hot

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350°. Lightly coat a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with vegetable oil spray, then line the bottom with parchment paper. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl and set aside.

Process the sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a food processor until combined, about 10 seconds. With the machine running, pour the melted butter through the feed tube in a steady stream, about 30 seconds. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.

Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the egg mixture and whisk in. A few streaks of flour should remain. Repeat twice more with the remaining flour mixture and continue to whisk the batter gently until most of the lumps are gone. Do not over mix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Wipe any drops of batter off the sides of the pan. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with just a few crumbs attached, about 50 to 60 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip it out onto a wire rack. Turn the cake right side up, remove the parchment paper, and allow it to cool to room temperature, about 3 hours.

There are few notes about this recipe. You could easily vary the recipe up a little bit and add some flavor to it. Adding 2 tablespoons of grated lemon zest and 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice to the sugar just before you process everything in the 2nd step will give you a nice lemon pound cake. You can do the same with a tablespoon of grated orange zest and a tablespoon of orange juice and get an orange flavor instead. If you don’t have any cake flour on hand, you can make your own replacement. For every 1 cup of cake flour, you need 7/8 of a cup of all-purpose flour and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in order to get the same results You can serve this cake with a variety of different fruits on the side or some homemade whipped cream. Remember that blueberry sauce I made about a week ago? I used that on the cake and it tasted great.

That’s all there is for today. Next time out I held be sharing the recipe Michelle uses for her oatmeal raisin cookies. I also have some other recipes to try to share this week so keep checking back to see if there’s anything you like. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!