Brown Sugar Pound Cake . . . with Sauteed Apples and Cinnamon Whipped Cream . . . (See How My Mind Works?)

Some fisherman live by a little motto associated with an acronym that you may have heard. They call it "CPR" and it stands for "catch, photograph, and release." If you're a food blogger who focuses on baked goods and desserts you probably already know full well that some of the items you'll make will be so densely packed with temptation that you'll be forced to CPR them--that is, you'll plate up just one serving, photograph it, and then, bravely, freeze or banish most of the remainder.

This brown sugar pound cake is just such a temptress. I suspected last night that I'd need to place this velvety pound cake in the deep freeze to stave off personal over-indulgence. But this morning I realized the freezer was an absolute certainty when my husband, on his way out the door, glanced back at me and said, "Don't let me eat any of that really good cake today, okay?"

Man, he's stoic. I have to admire that guy. He's lately been working particularly hard on losing weight, and I don't want to sabotage his efforts. I, too, am intimately familiar with the weight struggle, so, my overriding thought right now is:  Thank God for plastic wrap, Zip-Loc freezer bags, and refrigeration. Out of sight, out of mind is good, and sometimes out of house, out of mind is even better.

About this recipe . . . 

This pound cake recipe is adapted from chefs Todd English and Paige Retus's book, The Olives Dessert Table. Elegant but unpretentious, the small volume is jam packed with creatively plated desserts, and the self-proclaimed "familiar made finer" recipes are  presented in a way that seems specifically designed to neither intimidate nor discourage home cooks. In my ever-growing collection of cookbooks, it's definitely one of my faves.



What did I change in the pound cake's original recipe? Along with rewording the instructions, instead of using all white sugar, I subbed in about three quarters light brown sugar, and for the remainder I used white cane sugar (the use of light brown sugar was suggested in the book as a possible variation). I also, on a whim, threw in one tablespoon of real maple syrup to add depth of character to the flavor. (The recipe also suggests adding in nuts or dried fruit, but I wasn't at all crazy about that idea so I left those out.)

Noticing that the recipe didn't call for any chemical leavener at all concerned me a bit, so I decided to sift in 1/2 tsp. of baking powder with the flour and salt. I don't honestly know exactly how the pound cake would have turned out had I not included baking powder . . . probably would have just been more dense? I suppose. Before deciding to do that, though, I skimmed through about six other basic pound cake recipes in six different cookbooks to get a better feel for the general leavening situation. Those recipes were all fairly varied, but none of them omitted either baking powder or baking soda altogether. 

The addition of apples sauteed in browned butter, light brown sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, and a squeeze of fresh orange juice was my own idea, thrown together, along with that dollop of sweetened cinnamon-kissed whipped cream. See how my mind works? I know. I guess I'm just incorrigible.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake . . . with Sauteed Apples and Cinnamon Whipped Cream

(For a printable version of these recipes, click here!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9" metal loaf pan, and one mini loaf pan or something of comparable size. (Please note that when I made this recipe, it produced a little too much batter for a 9" loaf pan, so I put about one cup of the batter into a mini loaf pan in order to avoid catastrophe. I suggest you have a mini pan prepared as well in case this happens to you too! The mini loaf will bake much faster than the big loaf, so don't forget about it when they're both in the oven.)

Ingredients for the pound cake:

1 lb. (4 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 and 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated white sugar (I used pure cane sugar.)
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. real maple syrup (I used Trader Joe's brand--good, but not super expensive.)
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 and 1/2 cups All Purpose flour (I used unbleached, and I sifted .)
3/4 tsp. salt (I used regular table salt this time, not kosher/coarse.)
1/2 tsp. baking powder


Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

In the large bowl of your mixer, beat the butter for several minutes until it looks light, fluffy, and almost white.

Add in all of the sugar and beat well, for another minute or so.

Pour in the vanilla, and then add the eggs one at a time, beating on medium speed for at least a couple of minutes after each addition.

Add in the flour mixture all at once, and beat on lowest speed just until combined. Or if you prefer, do this by hand, folding the flour gently into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan(s), and bake on the middle rack of your oven for at least one hour (mine took closer to 75 minutes).

Check the loaf after half an hour or so to see how it's browning. I covered the top of mine lightly with foil after it had been in the oven about 40 minutes, to prevent burning. Remove the loaf from the oven when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out completely clean, and when a finger tapped on the top of the loaf doesn't leave an impression. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes. Turn it carefully out of the pan and let it cool fully on the rack before trying to slice it.

Store the cake well covered. It should keep really well for a few days and, like so many pound cakes, it apparently improves with age.


Ingredients for sauteed apples (this makes enough for up to 4 servings):
2 medium size apples, peeled and cored (I used Pink Lady apples; firm and very sweet), and sliced into pieces about 1/4" thick
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 to 1/3 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
2 to 4 pinches ground cinnamon
1/4 to 1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice (use a nice sweet orange)

To make the sauteed apples:
Heat a medium size saute pan on the stove over medium-low heat for a minute or two. Add in the butter, letting it melt and begin to slightly brown. Add in the apples and stir to coat them in the butter. Let them simmer for a few minutes. Sprinkle on the brown sugar and cinnamon, stirring it lightly to coat the apples; simmer a couple more minutes. Add in the orange juice and stir to combine. Continue simmering until the apples begin are tender but not mushy. Keep an eye on the pan and be careful not to let the sugar and butter mixture burn. Turn off the fire and let the mixture cool slightly in the pan while you plate your pound cake and whip the cream.

Ingredients for sweetened cinnamon whipped cream (makes about two cups whipped):
1 cup cold heavy cream
4 tbsp. confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 pinches ground cinnamon


To make sweetened cinnamon whipped cream:
In a chilled bowl, beat the cream on medium high speed until it begins to thicken. Sprinkle in the confectioners' sugar and the cinnamon. Keep beating until the cream forms soft peaks. Keep covered and refrigerated until ready to serve.

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Espresso Chocolate-Chip Pound Cake with Ganache Glaze . . .

I've been wallowing lately, but not in anything bad. Not in mud, self pity, or anything unpleasant like that. Just in some really luscious cookbooks. Have you ever seen this one? It's not new, or even newish, but that doesn't diminish its appeal one bit.

Baking by Flavor, written by Lisa Yockelson, could keep you busy for a long time. Tossed onto a deserted tropical island--one with a fully equipped kitchen--you'd be content to work from this book right up until you were rescued a few months later. (Oh, and when you arrive on the island, I highly recommend you turn first to the coconut based recipes. Nothing like using local produce, right?)

The book is organized by primary flavors, rather than by particular food type. Personally,  I find this approach enormously practical. This is almost always how I first embark upon  the search for a good recipe. My quest begins with the desire to feature a particular flavor, and not necessarily the yen to produce a cake versus a pie versus a cookie versus a you-name-it. Is it like that for you too?

About this cake . . .
This velvety pound cake is like a well orchestrated composition. It's flavors are deep, rich, and expressive.  My husband, coffee maniac that he is, is quite enamored. My younger son--the chocolate fan extraordinaire--also gave it high marks, and augmented his slice with a scoop of homemade chocolate-almond  ice cream (that boy knows how to enjoy a dessert!).

While baking this last week, I stuck pretty closely to the original formula with a few very small alterations. The most obvious adjustment entailed cloaking the baked cake in a creamy ganache instead of brushing it with a coffee and liqueur syrup.  (The ganache recipe isn't from the book. It's something for which you hardly need a recipe, and it's a pretty standard formula, anywhere you look.)

This cake can accommodate a massive crowd and, rich as it is, thinner slices are usually the way to go. Don't forget to serve it along with a big pot of java . . . but you might want to make that decaf! (And don't panic, all those little coffee beans in the photos are just there for effect; I'm not suggesting you sprinkle them on the cake!)


Espresso Chocolate Chip Pound Cake . . . with Ganache Glaze

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a tube pan, or a 9" to 10" springform pan fitted with the tube insert, with vegetable shortening. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper cut to fit. Grease the paper. Dust the inside of the pan with flour and tap out the excess.

2 tsp. instant espresso powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. hot water
2 and 3/4 cups unsifted All-Purpose flour, unbleached
1/4 cup unsifted cake flour
1/3 cup plus 1 Tbsp. Dutch processed cocoa
1/8 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups dark chocolate chips, coarsely chopped
1/2 lb. unsalted butter, softened (2 sticks)
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar, with all lumps broken up
5 eggs, large
1 cup sour cream, thick style
2 Tbsp. heavy cream

For the ganache: 
1 and 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 and 1/2 cups chopped dark chocolate

To make the cake:
Stir together the espresso powder, vanilla extract, and hot water in a very small bowl.

Onto a large sheet of parchment or wax paper, sift together the flour, cake flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a medium size bowl, toss the chocolate pieces with about 1 Tbsp. of this flour mixture. Set both aside.

In the large bowl of your mixer, cream the butter on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl.

Pour in the granulated sugar in 3 additions, mixing for about 1 minute after each addition. Scrape the bowl frequently to ensure even mixing. Add in all of the brown sugar and beat for 1 more minute. Scrape again.

One at a time, add in the eggs, beating for 45 seconds after each one. Scrape!

Blend in the espresso mixture.

On low speed, add in the sifted ingredients alternately with the sour cream (3 additions of flour and 2 additions of the sour cream). Scrape after each addition.

Blend in the heavy cream.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the chocolate pieces well with a spatula.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the top.

 

Bake the cake on the middle rack of your oven for about 70 minutes or more, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean and the cake starts to pull away slightly from the sides of the pan. (I put my pan on top of a baking sheet to help prevent the possibility of burning the bottom of the cake. If you are concerned about this too, do the same. I also checked the cake about half an hour into baking, and covered the top lightly with foil to prevent over-browning. My oven is temperamental this way.)

Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes. (If you used a springform pan, remove the sides of the pan after only 5 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edge if there seems to be any resistance at all.)

Invert the cake onto another cooling rack, remove the parchment paper and invert the cake again so it's right side up. Allow the cake to completely cool on the rack.

To make the ganache:

Place the chopped chocolate in a medium size bowl. In a heavy sauce pan, warm the heavy cream over a low flame. Do not let it boil. Pour all of the warm cream over the chocolate and let it sit undisturbed for a few minutes, then gently stir until all the chocolate is melted, completely blended in, and the ganache is smooth.

 
Wait until the ganache is closer to room temperature before spooning or pouring it over the cooled cake. (Be sure to place the cake on a rack over a sheet pan, to catch the drips, before pouring or spooning on the ganache! You can save and refrigerate any extra ganache to use for something else.)

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Winter Loves Sweet Potato Pound Cake with Cinnamon Cream Glaze . . .

Its very name is wintery, don't you think? Though I'm sure I could easily be convinced to do so, at the moment I just can't picture myself biting into a piece of this cake in, say, the dog days of August, while the air conditioning is cranking away and all of the markets are brimming with fresh summer fruit. Some desserts seem to find their reason for existing only in the months ending in "er" or "ary" and clearly this is one of them.

In prowling around our bookshelves and, ultimately, the internet in search of the perfect sweet potato pound cake recipe, I contemplated a few possibilities. One promising candidate was from All Cakes Considered, by Melissa Gray. It looks great, but it contains apple pieces, nuts, and several spices. That all sounds tempting, but today I wanted to make something a little less fraught with competing flavors.

The two primary flavors in the cake that I did bake are simply sweet potato and fresh nutmeg, and the recipe that I settled on comes to us via Molly Wizenberg of Orangette. She adapted it from one that appears in the book Southern Cakes by Nancy McDermott. Molly's post about this cake appeared in her blog last winter in the fretful days just prior to the publication of her warm and funny memoir, A Homemade Life (see what I mean about it being a winter cake?).

Molly used a buttermilk glaze that needs to be cooked, but I've omitted that in favor of a more basic cinnamon cream glaze that's just stirred together. Of course, this is one of those cakes that doesn't really need adornment of any kind. Plain is good too. Sometimes plain is really, really good.


Sweet Potato Pound Cake with Cinnamon Cream Glaze

(For a printable copy of this recipe, click here!)

For the cake:

3 and ¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
½ tsp. salt
½ cup milk (lowfat is fine)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes (Note from Jane: I only had two medium-sized potatoes on hand so, when mashed, that came out to barely 1 and 1/2 cups; I just went ahead and used that amount and it was fine.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 10" tube or bundt pan with baking spray. If you don't have baking spray, do a really thorough job of greasing and flouring.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt. Whisk well. In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the milk and vanilla.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and light brown sugar until light and fluffy, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the sweet potatoes, and mix until the batter is combined. (The batter looks curdled, but that's okay!)

With the mixer on low speed, add half of the flour mixture. Beat to just incorporate. Then add half of the milk mixture, and continue to beat on low until well blended. Add the remaining flour, followed by the remaining milk, and beat on low until the batter is thick and smooth.


Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 45 to 50 minutes (Note from Jane: Molly says "60 to 75 minutes," but my cake would have been badly overbaked if I'd left it in that long!) or until the cake springs back when pressed lightly and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes.

Run a thin knife around the edge to loosen the cake, and then carefully invert it onto the rack. Cool completely.

 

For the glaze:

1 cup sifted confectioner's sugar (or, if you hate sifting this stuff, just be sure to use Domino's 10X)
2 Tbsp. 1/2 and 1/2 
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Combine the confectioner's sugar, half and half, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Stir, and keep stirring, until the sugar is completely absorbed and the glaze is completely smooth.

Set a wire rack, with the cake atop it, over a rimmed sheet pan. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake.

* * * *
Now slice a little piece, sit down, and take a bite.

That's one groovy pound cake, isn't it?



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My Mom (the Conservative Baker) and Banana Sour-Cream Pound Cake . . .

My mom used to make a mean pound cake. She was a woman of conservative taste in most aspects of life, truth be told. This was true of her even when it came to cooking and baking. If she felt a recipe went too far afield, her tendency was always to steer clear. In the almost 46 years that I knew her, she rarely--if ever--made anything remotely exotic. What she did make, though, was usually pretty good and sometimes startingly so.

That's not to say she never experimented in the kitchen. Her experiments just didn't appear outwardly adventurous, nor were they necessarily models of house-wifely innovation. They never screamed "Hey, look at me!" (Come to think of it, she never screamed "Hey, look at me!" either.) She had little interest in rocking the culinary boat. You'd never find her poaching an eel or putting pine nuts and pomegranate seeds in the Thanksgiving stuffing, but she was supremely interested in modest conventional variations that could subtly improve upon a recipe that she already really liked.

I suppose when it comes to baking, an attitude like that has far more drawbacks than benefits. The one obvious benefit such an attitude might hold, though, would be the fact that it gives you a chance to try and perfect a given recipe through repetition. Sounds kind of boring, doesn't it? I agree that it does. But, I suppose if you're a careful observer of the minutiae of each recipe as you bake, and you care about what you're doing, then a tried and true recipe can seem a bit different every single time you prepare it.

I think that's how my mom looked at this kind of thing. She was always trying to see what could be fixed, and trying to come up with ways to not just fix it but to make it better, both in the kitchen and in life. She was often successful that way in the kitchen; outside of the kitchen, however, one just doesn't have all that much control. As she aged, she became more accepting of the things she couldn't change, both large and small, and more appreciative of anything that was truly good . . . in the kitchen and in life.

About the banana sour-cream pound cake . . .

A simple, classic, vanilla flavored, non-boat-rocking, sour-cream pound cake was one of her specialities (for that recipe of hers, click here). The focus of this post, however, is a banana variation of that cake, one that my mother endorsed. It's a nice change from the basic vanilla, but a comfortable change.

I say kugelhopf, you say gugelhopf . . .

I bought a new kugelhopf/gugelhopf pan that I found on sale recently, so I decided to throw caution to the wind this afternoon and bake the cake in that. It's taller, and the bottom of it is narrower, than a typical bundt pan or regular tube pan would be. I don't know if I'd bake this particular recipe in that pan again. The outside of the cake got a little darker than I think it should be, but it is a pretty shape. I've made this recipe before in a regular bundt pan and it's turned out great; I'll probably go back to doing that next time.

This is one of those cakes that tastes much better completely cooled than when it's still even lukewarm, and also tastes best the next day. I dusted mine with confectioner's sugar, but in the past I've drizzled it with a vanilla glaze, and I think I gave it a chocolate glaze once too--all delicious options.

This particular recipe is a slight variation on one that appeared in Taste of Home magazine about five years ago (the original 2004 recipe can be found if you click on the link). In terms of what I altered: I changed the extract amounts and the salt amount slightly; I used superfine sugar instead of granulated (but feel free to use granulated if you want to); I used cake flour instead of All Purpose; and I didn't use a tablespoon of sugar to "dust" the greased pan. Other than that I left things pretty much the same.

Banana Sour-Cream Pound Cake

(For a printable copy of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease, or use baking spray on, a 10-cup bundt or tube pan.

3 cups superfine sugar (granulated sugar will work too)
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
6 large eggs
1 cup well-mashed ripe banana
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. lemon extract
1/8 tsp. almond extract
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups cake flour (All Purpose flour is okay if you don't have cake, but sift it well before measuring)
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sour cream

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 5 minutes or more. (Today, mine just never got what I'd call light and fluffy); the ratio of sugar to butter is pretty high. Just do the best you can, but don't fret about it.)

Add the eggs in one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stop and scrape the bowl as needed between additions. On lowest speed, stir in the mashed bananas and the extracts. Continuing on lowest speed, add in the flour mixture and the sour cream alternately. Begin and end with the flour. Stop to scrape down the bowl and the paddle as needed.

Spoon the batter into the pan and smooth out the top with your spatula. Bake the cake for at least 65 minutes and even up to 85 (my oven is like a blast furnace; my cake had to come out on the early side). The top should be golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the cake should come out clean. If the top is browning too quickly, cover it lightly with foil. When you deem the cake done, let it cool for about 10 to 15 minutes before you invert it onto a cooling rack.

P.S. It can be hard to tell when a pound cake is truly done. I'm notorious for taking them out too soon. That fine velvety texture that's characteristic of perfect pound cake sometimes eludes me because I don't bake them long enough. If your cake comes out too moist, dense, and kind of eggy tasting, it needed to bake longer. This is a live-and-learn lesson, made all the more troublesome if you have an oven that doesn't heat quite accurately (like mine).



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