Friday, May 8, 2009

Every Cake Needs a Little Cream Cheese



I've yet to meet a recipe that I don't think could be improved with a little cream cheese. Nature's perfect food. And that's especially true for pound cake. Cream cheese in the batter is a must.

This is my no-fail pound cake go-to recipe. It's great plain, or with fruit or whipped cream. It's also good with extracts other than vanilla (orange, rum and lemon are three favorites). It only calls for three-fourths of a pound of butter, so I've renamed it in case anyone out there in readerland is a real stickler for details.

Three-Fourths of a Pound of Butter Cake
  • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups butter
  • 3 cups white sugar
  • 6 eggs
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 t. vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.

In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy. Add eggs two at a time, beating well with each addition. Add the flour all at once and mix in. Add vanilla.

Pour into the prepared pan. Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour and 20 minutes, checking for doneness at 1 hour. A toothpick inserted into center of cake will come out clean.


The food: Three-Fourths of a Pound of Butter Cake
The verdict: You don't even miss that extra quarter-pound

3 comments:

Ellen said...

Yum. My go-to pound cake recipe is from Southern Living.... but this recipe is so much easier. I will definitely be giving this a try. As always, thanks for sharing!! ;)

Mike said...

Is cheese cake really found in "nature?"

Dan said...

Drooooool!