Cold Oven Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Found this recipe on Reddit and the batter was enough to make 12 cupcake-sized pound cakes and one loaf for a work potluck. The cupcake-sized pound cakes got overbaked, and were of a hockey puck consistency, so didn't get anyone to eat them. Was able to slice up the loaf, and had a few takers for that. Not sure why it wasn't as popular of a homemade dessert; but the three-layer cake someone else made was more appealing.

Flour measuring method: scoop with a spoon into measuring cup and level

Substitution for cake flour

1 cup cake flour = 1 cup all purpose flour minus 2 tbsp flour plus 2 tbsp cornstarch

Ingredients

1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter (8 T. each)
8 oz. cream cheese
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups cake flour
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Start with ingredients at room temperature. Butter and flour a loaf 9x5x3 loaf pan and set aside. I have a silicone loaf pan and just lightly grease the inside with unsalted butter.

Using a stand mixer, combine cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla extract until light in color and fluffy. Then, add a whole egg, one at a time and mix to incorporate each egg before adding the next.

Pour batter evenly into a loaf pan or into silicone muffin cups.

Do not preheat oven. Start the bake in a cold oven.

Bake pound cake for 1.5 hours at 325 F, if using an angel food cake tube pan. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.

Bake for 70 minutes at 325 F, if using a loaf pan. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack before unmoulding.

Bake for 25 minutes at 350 F, if using making cupcake/muffin tin.

Pumpkin Pound Cake

This was my favorite dessert for this year's T-Day holiday. Not only was it delicious the day I made it, it was just as tasty the next day and the next. What can I say. I love pound cake. I had a hard time spreading the sugar glaze and it seemed as though the glaze could handle a lot more liquid than what the recipe originally called for.

Pumpkin Pound Cake with a Sugar Glaze

Cake Ingredients:

3 3/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 c organic pumpkin pureé
3/4 c whole milk
6 large eggs
1 1/2 c organic granulated sugar
1 1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Cake Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and dust with flour a 12-cup Bundt pan.

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, spice, baking powder and baking soda.

2. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Add an egg, one at a time and beat until combined.

3. Alternate flour and milk while mixing into the egg/butter/sugar mixture until everything is combined.

4. Spoon into a prepared Bundt pan and bake for an hour. If a toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done.

Sugar Glaze Ingredients:

1 1/2 c powdered sugar
3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3+ tbsp whole milk

Put glaze ingredients into a bowl and whisk together with enough milk until it is thin enough to pour on top of cake. 

Green Tea Pound Cake

This recipe comes from the book Perfect Cakes by Chef Nick Malgieri. I made a few adjustments to the recipe, not much, but don't go broke buying matcha green tea powder when you can make it yourself using ordinary loose leaf green tea. Because I didn't use the bright green-colored matcha tea powder and used unbleached all-purpose flour, the cake itself had a green tea flavor and had a muddy-green color when I took it out of the oven. I also overfilled the loaf pan (the cake does rise by double its volume) and baked the cake for 15 minutes longer that what the original recipe calls for.

You don't need to buy the expensive matcha green tea powder for this recipe. If you have an electric coffee grinder, you can certainly make your own with any type of dried green tea. I used a combination of good quality green tea bags plus some Longjing loose leaf tea. The green tea powder that anyone can make is called konacha, or "powder tea". Since this is for a bread-based dessert, you don't need to get the green tea as finely milled as you can with a coffee grinder, as you might with a mochi or green tea ice cream recipe.

Makes 1 loaf (9" x 5" x 3")

Ingredients

2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp green tea powder
2 tsp baking powder
2 sticks unsalted butter, diced
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
5 large eggs, separated
a pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Butter and line a 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pan with parchment paper.

1. Separate the eggs into yolks and whites. A small bowl for the yolks, and  a 5-qt mixing bowl for the whites.

2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, tea powder, baking powder, and powdered sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or toss in all these ingredients in step 1 into a food processor and pulse until crumbs form). Gently fold in one egg yolk at a time with a rubber spatula.

3. Add the pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat with a balloon whisk (or use an electric mixer with a balloon whisk attachment) until medium peaks form. When you lift the whisk out of the eggs, the foam should mostly hold its shape and be white and opaque in color.

4. Gently fold the egg whites into the flour mixture until no white streaks remain.

5. Fill a prepared loaf pan with the batter half way, the cake will rise and double in volume. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Let it cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack before slicing.

Lemon Pound Cake

...with six egg yolks. Yeah, so we had all these leftover egg yolks from that brown butter hazelnut cake (which, according to Smitten Kitchen's recipe takes six egg whites if using large eggs) from two weeks ago that I thought I'd toss into this recipe. This cake recipe ordinarily takes just four egg yolks, but I wasn't about to do fancy math with the dry ingredients to accommodate two more egg yolks. I'll soon find out in about an hour if the cake came out okay.

Ingredients

1 c. organic granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 1/4 c. unbleached all purpose flour, minus 2 tbsp flour
6 egg yolks
1/3 c. half and half (or whole milk)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract
zest of one lemon
pinch of kosher salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. In a stand mixer: cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla and lemon extracts. Add lemon juice and lemon zest. Add egg yolks. Beat until pale and fluffy.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

3. While the stand mixer is running (on low), alternate while adding half-and-half and flour. Beat until well combined.

4. Butter a loaf pan and fill with cake mixture. Bake for 50 minutes or until edges of the cake are lightly browned and start to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Let cool on a rack before removing from loaf pan.

Cornmeal Pound Cake

Last autumn I picked up some stone ground cornmeal from the Grist Mill and thought I'd see if it was still usable. This cake came out pretty heavy and dense. I think it would go well with a fruit or berry compote with a slice of this as its base.

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 c. finely ground yellow cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. organic granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/4 c. whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Whisk in milk, vanilla extract, and eggs. Gradually stir in flour mixture.

3. Prepare a loaf pan by buttering the insides. Pour in batter.

4. Bake for 1 hour, until the top is golden brown on top. Cool in pan on a rack. Remove cake from pan and let cool completely before serving or storing.

Lemon Pound Cake

I grew up eating the Sara Lee stuff and can probably still eat an entire loaf by myself. This ingredient ratio comes from Cooks Illustrated and becomes a pretty tasty dessert bread for guests who enjoy a more lemony than sweet flavor to this classic cake. The magazine would have you poke holes with a toothpick or skewer into the top side of the cake before drizzling on their lemon glaze, which really isn't quite a glaze at all but more like a lemon syrup. For a real glaze, you'd probably have to swap out the real granulated sugar with powdered sugar so that it sets up like a crust when it hardens.

If you don't stock cake flour, simply combine 1 cup all-purpose flour (minus 2 tbsp) with 2 tbsp cornstarch.

Ingredients: Cake

1 1/2 c. cake flour
1 c. (2 sticks; 16 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, diced
1 c. organic cane sugar
4 large eggs
2 tbsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt

Optional additions to step 4:
For lemon poppy seed pound cake, stir in 1/2 c. poppy seeds, or
For lavender pound cake, stir in 1 1/2 tbsp dried lavender flowers

Ingredients: Lemon Glaze

1/2 c. powdered sugar
juice of a lemon
lemon zest (optional)

Bring sugar and lemon juice to a boil in a small pot, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Let cool and set aside until ready to use.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. Prepare a 9" x 5" loaf pan by using unsalted butter or olive oil to grease the pan, dust it with some flour, and tap out the excess.

2. In a food processor, pulse together sugar and lemon zest. Add lemon juice, eggs, and vanilla extract. Transfer mixture to a large bowl.

3. In the same food processor, pulse together flour, baking powder, salt, and butter. 

4. Gently whisk flour mixture into wet ingredients. Pour batter into prepared pan. 

5. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven heat to 325 degrees F and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes until the surface is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Cool on a rack before storing or serving.