Cream Cheese Pound Cake

This recipe was inspired by a recipe that a friend gave me. I had to do some work to perfect my technique and tweak the ingredients.


Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter (room temperature)*
3 cups sugar
8 ounces (1 block/package) cream cheese (room temperature)*
6 eggs (room temperature)*
3 tablespoons vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

*I am absolutely serious about the room temperature thing with these ingredients. Plan ahead and set your butter, cream cheese and eggs out on the counter well in advance (like a couple of hours).


You'll also need:

Bundt pan
Butter for greasing the pan
Stand mixer & paddle attachment
Spoonula


Method:

Butter your bundt pan FIRST.

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.

Cream together your (room temperature) butter and sugar until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of your bowl. Add in the (room temp.) cream cheese and continue to beat for a minute or two. Again, scrape down your bowl.

Add in your (room temp.) eggs one at a time and beat well in between and scraping down the sides of your bowl and paddle attachment as needed. After all eggs have been added and well beaten to add plenty of air to the batter, add the vanilla and mix well.

Add the flour mixture a little at a time and mix until well combined.

"Pour" the batter into your prepared bundt pan. The batter will be very thick and you will likely be spooning it more than pouring it.

Bake at 325 F for 80 - 90 minutes (almost 1 1/2 hours) until toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10-20 minutes and then turn it over on to a cooling rack to continue to cool completely.

I hear that this type of cake freezes great, but ours never lasts long enough to find out.

~~~

When you cream until fluffy, beat it until you think it looks smooth, and then go a little longer. You really have to work the air into the butter & sugar to get a nice even texture later.

After everything is added, the batter is quite thick and almost fills the bundt pan.




Once it's done, it rises just a little past the top of the bundt pan, but it will deflate just a bit as it cools.




The resulting cake is beautiful and delicious.