Cream Cheese Pound Cake

As promised, here is my first recipe post: Cream Cheese Pound Cake!

This cake pairs wonderfully with ripe fruit and fresh whipped cream. It's also fabulous on its own, or served slightly warm with chocolate or fudge sauce. The perfect simple summer desert. 

 This is all you need for a luscious, creamy, rich pound cake: 1.5 cups butter & 1 cup cream cheese (softened), 6 eggs, 3 cups sugar, 3 cups sifted all purpose flour, 2 tsp vanilla and a dash of salt. With just a little work, provided by the ubiquitous Kitchenaid mixer, these components form the best pound cake you will ever eat.

 A pre-chaos shot. Please excuse the mess in our living room, we are getting ready to move. Grease and flour a 12 cup bundt pan. Preheat the oven to 325.

 Cream the softened butter and cream cheese together until combined.

 Increase the speed to medium and mix in the sugar slowly. Beat until fluffy. Decrease the speed to low and mix in the eggs, one at a time. Wait until each egg has been incorporated before you add the next egg.

 Next, slowly add in the flour. Once the flour is completely incorporated, add the vanilla and the dash of salt. (Note, I use salted butter, so I don't add much salt. If you use unsalted butter, you may want to increase the amount of salt you add). The batter will be reminiscent of soft serve vanilla ice-cream.

 This batter is very stiff. I've found that simply rotating my bundt pan and plopping dollops of the mixture ensures a fairly even distribution.

 Smooth out the surface of the batter.

 I invite you all to admire my thrift store vintage bundt pan in all its glory!
Give your pan one good wallop on the counter to remove any large air bubbles. Don't wallop any more than that though, or you may end up with a off-puttingly dense cake.
Bake at 325 for 1.25-1.5 hours, until a toothpick inserted all the way comes out clean.

 Here is the finished cake. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before removing. I find that slipping a thin rubber spatula around the outer edge of the cake gives me a smooth, rip free removal.

Top with a dusting of powdered sugar. Allow the cake to cool a bit more before devouring.

Thanks for joining me for my first recipe post. Not all of my recipes will be quite so deliciously unhealthy, but they will probably be close!

This recipe adapted from the Brown Eyed Baker. 

 http://www.browneyedbaker.com/cream-cheese-pound-cake/