Posts from the ‘Desserts’ Category

Dec 31

Happy New Year, Some Favorites And 2015 in review

Taken from Pinterest

I wish each and everyone of you an amazing, healthy, happy, joyous and prosperous 2016. I want to thank you all for being such great friends, for leaving such uplifting and kind comments and for being my source of inspiration. Below is the report compiled by the WordPress helper monkey’s. I don’t really keep track of the stats, but do appreciate the work that WordPress puts into these reports, thank you to the good people at WordPress!! Both 2014 and 2015 were hard years for me, harder than I can even express. The start of a new year brings with it hope and we also reflect on the past year, the good and the bad, the sad and the happy, triumphs and failures. Life can sometimes be like a rollercoaster ride.

Going into my 4th year of blogging in January is quite momentous for me. I can’t believe I am still doing this, have made such great friends and learned so much. Hope you all have a wonderful time on New Years Eve and joyously welcome 2016, peace, love and joy to all. Below are some photo’s I compliled with some of my favorite dishes both sweet and savory.

Savory favorites

Baked, desserts and the epic biscuit!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 37,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Dec 25

123 Comments

Triple Layer Black Forest Cake For Fiesta Friday #100

This is really a simple cake to both make and assemble. My favorite chocolate cake recipe from Hershey’s is so easy to make and quick to prepare, whipped cream frosting and cherry preserves. It’s the Holidays so go festive with the garnish, I shaved some chocolate on top and coated some fruit (apricots, cherries,kumquats,grapes and cranberries) with sugar by simply brushing with lightly beaten egg white and dusting with granulated sugar except the sugared cranberries which get a good soak in a sugar syrup then a roll in granulated sugar.

As I mentioned in my last post this is the 100th Fiesta Friday Party, it’s a milestone and I am honored to be a co host for this 2 week, (YES, the party lasts 2 weeks) bash. Our host as always is the effervescent and steadfast Angie, thank you for making this possible Angie, and my wonderful and lovely co-hosts are Judi, Mollie, Steffi, we are waiting to welcome you all to the party. EVERYONE is welcome to join in the festivities, the link to join is at the end of this post. Merry Christmas to all have a joyous day with friends and family and enjoy copious amounts of delicious food!!

Chocolate Cake

From Hershey’s

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup milk at room temperature

2 eggs at room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degree’s. Prepare three 8 inch round cake pans, grease or butter or spray, line with parchment round, grease again and dust with flour.

In large mixing bowl whisk or sift together the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the wet ingredients, milk, egg, oil, vanilla but NOT the boiling water. Beat with electric mixer for 2 minutes. Add the boiling water and mix only until combined. Distribute evenly in baking pans and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes depending on your oven or until cake tester comes out clean.

Whipped Cream Frosting:

From James Mcnair’s Cakes

1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 cups Heavy whipping cream Divided
1 teaspoon Pure vanilla extract
Place metal bowl and wire whisk beater or beaters in freezer to chill.
In a small saucepan combine the powdered sugar and cornstarch whisk until mixed. Slowly whisk in 1/2 cup heavy cream whisk until smooth. Place on medium heat and stir constantly to prevent scorching at the bottom stir constantly until mixture thickens and almost comes to a boil. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and set aside stirring occasionally until it reaches room temperature.
In the chilled bowl combine the remaining 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream and the vanilla beat with the chilled whisk of your stand mixer or your hand held mixer until the cream begins to hold shape. While still beating add the powdered sugar mixture a little at a time. Beat just until the mixture forms stiff peaks when the beater is raised and is spreadable, be careful not to over beat. Use immediately.

Assembling the Cake

Place bottom layer on cake stand, spread some cherry preserves on and top with some whipped cream frosting, place the second layer on and do the same finishing with the top layer flat side on the top. Top with more whipped cream frosting and refrigerate until ready to serve. Just before serving arrange the sugared fruit on top or whatever garnish you choose.

To make sugared fruit click here and see a video tutorial from Martha Stewart. It’s so simple.

I hope you all will want to come to the party and all are welcome!! To link your recipe simply click the button. See you at the party!!

Dec 18

125 Comments

Fruitcake For Fiesta Friday #99

Festive

I have had these fruit cake photo bombing just about every post lately. I felt they deserve a solo spot. I wanted to publish the recipe because basically I changed much of it after finding a few flaws. I have to say though, it is probably the best fruit cake I have ever made or eaten. The recipe makes one 9 inch loaf or 3 mini loaves, since I give as gifts I make mini’s. I got the recipe last year from Pure Wow, they call it “The Best Damn Fruitcake” and with a few changes they are right about that. I made 3 more today and am bringing with me to Fiesta Friday, I hope they let me in with fruit cake, it gets a really bad rap and mostly for good reason because some of the commercially prepared fruitcakes are vile.

Next week will be the 100th party post and it happens to fall on Christmas Day, a celebration is in order. This week Angie’s co hosts are Caroline @ Caroline’s Cooking and Linda @ La Petite Paniere. Thank you ladies for hosting this week and Angie for all of her hard work.

Best Damn Fruitcake Redux

Makes one 9 inch loaf or 3 mini loaves

1 1/2 cups dried fruit of your choice- I used cherries, cranberries, apricots, pears and golden raisins. Use however much you like of each so that you have a total of 1 1/2 cups

1 1/2 cups nuts chopped- I used pecans, hazelnuts, pistachio’s and almonds. Use whatever you like, however much of each so that it equals 1 1/2 cups

1 cup booze or fruit juice like apple cider- (I have used cognac, bourbon, port, also have thrown in some Poire William), heated on stove top or in microwave until hot not boiling . (This time I used Port and it’s great)

12 tbs unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 eggs at room temperature

2 tsp vanilla

1 tbs orange zest

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

pinch of cinnamon

1 tbs retained liquid from fruit

Demerara or turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

Pre heat oven to 325 and prepare your loaf pan or pans. Butter or spray with cooking spray.

Pour the hot booze over the fruit and let sit for at least 30 minutes. (You can do this the night before and let the fruit sit all night in the booze)

Drain the fruit but retain the liquid, you will need it later so don’t discard.

Place the drained fruit and chopped nuts in a bowl and set aside.

In your mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar for about 4-5 minutes. It should be light and fluffy, scrape sides as needed. Add the eggs one at a time beating well between additions and scraping the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla, orange zest and cinnamon.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add to the butter mixture and beat only until combined adding the 1 tbs of retained liquid from the fruit. Remove the bowl from your mixer and add the fruit and nuts and fold in until combined. Add the batter to the pan or pans, smooth the top and sprinkle with the sugar. Bake with the rack in the middle of the oven. If you are making one loaf for about 90 minutes or until tester comes out clean. If mini loaves approximately 45 minutes. They will be golden brown. Remove from the oven and spoon some of the liquid on the loaf or loaves and let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and finish cooling on rack. To finish them spoon some more liquid on them and wrap in plastic or cheese cloth and store in air tight tin, These are best served 48 hours after baking. You can feed them again with the liquid the next day, re wrap and keep in the tin until ready to serve.

There are no photo’s of it sliced but here is one from last year.

Dec 17

92 Comments

Crinkle Cookies, Decorating And More Stuff

I have no idea where time is going, it’s already the end of the week, Christmas is a week from today. I haven’t really done anything except make a few gift baskets, I still have so much to do, I am way behind schedule. Honestly, this year is very hard, I am trying, but my heart is not in it. I did sign up for Secret Santa/Wino on a wine blog I follow, The Drunken Cycalist and got a lovely gift. Jeff organzes this every year and this time I decided to participate. It was fun and I get to try some great wine. Thank you to Allison who sent me this wonderful gift. I have not opened the wine yet, waiting to make the right meal to pair with. That prickly pear jelly is so good, must find it.

Secret Santa gift, wine, sausage, candy, jelly

I have been baking, I made some gift baskets, have a few more to make, had our block association Holiday party and baked for that also. Last year I made fruit cakes and loved the recipe so I made them again this year, I really soaked them with the reserved cognac syrup. So delicious.

fruit cakes

Made some thumbprints, again same recipe as last year. They are delicious.

Chocolate thumbprint

I am adding some cookies to my holiday repertoire I mentioned the biscotti in a previous post along with Pecan Chewiess and Vanilice. I also decided to make chocolate crinkle cookies. I think they look so beautiful and I love anything chocolate. They turned out so good, it’s another recipe from Fida at Sweet and Savory Pursuits. The cookies are as light as a feather and so delicious, I have linked to the site so you can try the recipe, It’s wonderful. I also made my cardamom, orange and chocolate ribbon cookies.

Packing the cookies

Last but not least I started to decorate, I dragged multiple boxes of decorations upstairs and started unpacking and one of the first things I came across were Izzy and Nando’s Holiday Stockings. It made me so sad, I hung them on the mantle like I do every year. My sweet little dogs will always be with me in spirit.

decorated mantle.

I hope you all have a great weekend and get all of your holiday shopping, baking and decorating done. Are you the very definition of organization and efficiency? Have you done all of your shopping and decorating or do you make a mad rush to finish it all just in the knick of time?

Dec 14

70 Comments

A Guest Post, Mannele- Alsace Christmas Cookies

I have mentioned before (on more than one occasion) that I am a Air bnb host. One of the great things about doing this is the people I meet. One of my guests who lives in France happens to be a food blogger and EXTREMELY talented animator. Ariana and her partner/friend Lucie have the beautiful blog Cosmic Tomatoes between these two very talented ladies we are presented with delicious recipes and brilliant animated art work. I was so happy to meet and get to know her while she stayed with me, she said that their collaboration is a happy marriage of art and food, Ariana is the artist and Lucie the recipe developer. The yeasted Holiday cookie is a Christmas tradition in the Alsace region of France, Mannele/Mannala is probably much like the cut out sugar cookies here in the US or the ever popular gingerbread people. I hope you enjoy this guest post from our friends and neighbors in France. I follow Ariana’s blog she is also on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and I am loving the Advent calendar they are working on. Show Ariana some love and give both Ariana and Lucie a warm welcome. Take it away Ariana….

In Alsace starting from December 6th this brioche-man is offered to children by men disguised as Saint Nicholas. This is in fact a simplified representation of Saint Nicolas that can be found in all Alsatian bakeries during the holidays …

ingredients

. 1 kg flour
. 20 g salt
. 150g sugar
. 40 g yeast
. 2 eggs
. 45 cl milk
. 250 g butter

. 2 egg yolk
. chocolate chips or raisins

1/ Mix flour, salt, sugar, yeast, milk and eggs.

2/ Beat for 5 minutes at low speed, then the second speed for 6-8 minutes until you get an elastic dough.

3/ Add the butter and start kneading until it is incorporated.

4 / Let the dough rest for 1 hour in ambient air, covered with a plastic film.

5/ Separate pieces of 70g from the dough and shape little men (or any other creature you wish to). Let them rest for another hour.

6 / Cover the Manneles with eggs yolks and decorate them with chocolate chips or raisins.

7 / Bake at 180 ° C for about 15 minutes.

Dec 11

87 Comments

Holiday Gift Baskets And Some Biscotti For Fiesta Friday #98

cranberry pistachio biscotti

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, the first line and title of Andy Williams great Holiday song. It’s also the busiest time of the year. As a general rule I don’t really buy gifts for most friends or relatives, I am not a grinch really I just prefer to make my gifts at least for the adults, clients and friends.

I make the same cookies pretty much every year along with mini loaves of banana or other fruit loaves, including fruit cake. I always add a new cookie recipe or two to the line up, last year was a chocolate thumbprint with a hershey’s white striped kiss on it. This year I am adding biscotti, a wonderful recipe from Fida and her lovely blog Sweet and Savory Pursuits. I love biscotti, they are crunchy and I am a sucker for anything that can be dipped.

Ready for 2nd bake

Gift baskets for clients

Since I am in the throes of Holiday baking I decided to bring some biscotti to Fiesta Friday this week. Angie decked the halls making for a beautiful and festive party. We have two brand new co-hosts this week Sadhna @ Herbs, Spices, and Traditions and Natalie @ Kitchen, uncorked.

Nov 18

95 Comments

Thanksgiving Preparation

Photo by James Ransom for food52

I don’t know where the time went, next week is Thanksgiving. It dawned on me today so I started prepping. I make the same thing every single year, no change there would be a coup if I did. Part of me didn’t want Thanksgiving to get here even though it’s my favorite holiday, it’s my first without Izzy and Nando and I feel sad. That said I have started prepping, write the shopping list, order the turkey, make what I can in advance, bread cubes are drying in oven as I type this. Took a whole chicken out of the freezer to make stock. There is a lot of work and planning that goes into one meal and I do what I can in advance. Is that what you do? I usually have 8-10 here for Thanksgiving. How many do you have over?

What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Do you cook/host the meal or go to friends or relatives. Have you started preparing? Would love to know what everyone does, I know that some of you from other countries do not celebrate Thanksgiving. What is on the menu at your house? Traditional or non traditional or a mixture of both. Here is my menu with links to the recipes.

Butter and herb roasted turkey

Dressing

mashed potatoes- yukon gold, sour cream. butter salt and pepper

brussels sprouts- oven roasted

corn – steamed and served with some butter

homemade potato dinner rolls

cranberry sauce- use the recipe on the ocean spray package but sub fresh squeezed orange juice for the water and add some orange zest.

pumpkin and pecan pie – I usually just use the pumpkin pie recipe on the can of LIbby’s pumpkin, may do something different this year from my good friend Johnny at Kitschen Flavors.

I have a pretty strict time line making as much as I can in advance.

Done in advance:

Make chicken stock (need for dressing)

Make cornbread and air dry (2 days before I make the dressing)

Dry bread cubes for dressing (doing that today)

Cranberry sauce made ahead and refrigerated (making it this weekend)

Make compound butter for turkey (Monday)

Make pie dough and refrigerate (Tuesday)

Day before:

Prep the turkey putting the compound butter under the skin, and refrigerate.

Make dressing cover refrigerate.

Make the bread dough, form into rolls, cover and refrigerate until a few hours before baking them.

Make the pies plus an extra for a friend, the apple and pear tart

Thanksgiving Day:

We eat late around 5:30 or 6PM. I’ve heard that most eat early like lunch time. This is actually the easiest day, I have already done a lot of the work. Set the table, get the wine ready, refrigerate the white, let the red breathe/decant.

Turkey goes in at around noon – I get at 18-20 lb turkey and it’s done in 3 ish hours because of the fast cooking method I use in my graniteware pan.

Peel potatoes and cut and let sit in cold salted water until ready to boil. (Usually around 4PM)

Make the corn and brussels sprouts.

Bake the dressing

Bake the rolls right before dinner is served so they are hot.

Whew, it’s a lot of work but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Love Thanksgiving!!

Izzy And Nando

Nov 13

124 Comments

Fall Apple/Pear Tart For Fiesta Friday #94

I have been a tart making mad woman lately. I feel like I always am elbow deep in dough and honestly, I love it. Making pies and tarts is one of my favorite things to bake. There is something about the flaky buttery pastry crust with some sort of filling whether it be sweet or savory that just feels like home and comfort. I had to make some tarts for an office potluck (sort of early holiday) party and made extra so I could bring to the party. I am bringing an apple and pear tart decorated with fall leaves. I used a different method than making an apple pie for this tart, I wanted it to have a crisp crust and it had to be able to be eaten standing so no juicy piece of apple pie for this event. I blind baked a rectangular tart shell and oven roasted some apples and nicely ripened pears in poire william and brown sugar letting them get nicely soft. The fall leaves were also baked ahead and placed on the tart half way through the baking process. It really turned out nicely.

Thank you to Angie@Fiesta Friday for hosting and our co hosts this week are Judi @ cookingwithauntjuju and Stef @ The Kiwi Fruit. Thanks for hosting and I hope you all enjoy the tart.

Pie Dough

Julia Child makes a 9 inch double crust pie or 2 9 inch tarts

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cake flour

6 oz good unsalted butter (I use Irish butter – Kerry Gold very cold

4 tbs shortening cold

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup ice cold water

Place flours and salt in mixing bowl, whisk to combine. Cut in the butter and shortening with pastry cutter so that it resembles course crumbs. Pour in the water and mix just to combine with a fork. Gather the dough and divide in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and press into a disk shape. Refrigerate at least an hour or overnight.

blind bake tart shell

Blind Bake

Pre heat oven to 400 degree’s.

Roll dough, I like it pretty thin. Cut off a little bit of each disk so you can make the leaves and set aside. Place in the tart pan, prick bottom with fork and place in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Line baking sheet with parchment, place another piece of parchment on the frozen tart and weigh it down with pie weights or beans whatever you use. Bake for 20 minutes watching that it doesn’t brown to deeply. Remove from oven, let cool for about ten minutes and remove the pie weights. Let the tart shell cool on a rack.

With the reserved dough use cookie cutters in the shape of leaves and press out an assortment of leaves at least 1 dozen or more. Place on parchment lined baking sheet, brush with egg wash and place in freezer.

Reduce oven to 375 and bake the leaves for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. let cool on rack.

Apples and Pears

2 apples peeled cut in half and cored

2 pears peeled cut in half and cored

1/3 cup Poire William or pear nectar, apple cider or combination of all or some

1/3 cup brown sugar

pinch each of cinnamon and nutmeg

Butter a baking dish and place your pears and apples cut side down, pour in the liquid and sprinkle on the brown sugar. Dot with some butter. Bake for about 40 minutes, the pears and apples should be soft but not mushy.

Drain off the liquid and reserve for later and let the fruit cool to room temperature.

Baking the tart

Place the pears and apples in the tart shell, whisk 1 1/2 tbs of corn starch, or flour, cinnamon and nutmeg with the reserved liquid. Pour over the fruit and place in the 375 degree oven. Bake for 20 minutes and remove from the oven and carefully place the leaves on top of the tart, return to the oven for another 20 minutes or until golden brown.

To finish the tart I heated some apricot preserves and brushed the leaves so they were lovely and shiny.

Oct 20

114 Comments

Halloween/Samhain And A Triple Layer Apple Cake

Decorating my mantle for Halloween

I love Halloween/ Samhain, it’s huge in my neighborhood. Children walk en masse trick or treating, there are theatrical productions, music like the Dead Zombie Band playing on the street. Everyone dresses in costume here and has a wonderful time. We have a doggie costume contest called The Great Pupkin at Fort Greene Park (I miss dressing the pugs), people decorate their homes. I kid you not when I say Halloween is huge in Clinton Hill see this article in the Daily News.

My stoop

All month horror films (mostly not very good ones) are shown on TV, some of you who know me are aware that I am a fan of horror films, always have been and I look forward to seeing some of my favorites on Halloween. Two I love!

Mia Farrow-Rosemary’s Baby-Polanski is genius

Bela Lugosi Dracula

To celebrate the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter or the dark months, the literal and original meaning of Samhain, I made an apple cake. I know, there is a plethora of apple recipes out there right now along with pumpkin but thats ok, right, it’s apple and pumpkin season. This cake has been in my repertoire for years, it is the simplest and best apple layer cake recipe I have found. It is from Martha Stewart. The cake is shown with a brown sugar swiss meringue buttercream (yum) but I am making a cream cheese frosting. I have made this cake many times and vary the way I use the apples. Sometimes I follow directions grating 2 and dicing 2, sometimes I make applesauce from all 4 apples or at times I will grate all 4. For this cake I made applesauce which is my favorite way of prepping the apples for this cake. It is nicely spiced, moist and has a wonderful texture, I love it with either the Brown Sugar Buttercream or Cream Cheese Frosting any way you make it it is a wonderful way to celebrate apple season.

Apple cake

Three Layer Apple Cake

Martha Stewarts Everyday Food with John Baricelli

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp salt

2 cups packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

4 apples peeled and coursely grated (or you can grate 2 and dice 2) If you make applesauce the yeild is about 1 1/2 cups from 4 apples)

Directions:

Pre heat oven to 350 degree’s. Butter 3 8 inch round cake pans place parchment round in each butter again and dust with flour.

In medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger and salt. In large bowl whisk butter, sugar and eggs until well combined, fold in the grated apples. Add the flour mixture and mix just until combined Divide batter among the prepared pans.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans for 20 minutes before inverting onto cooling rack. Cool complettely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese softened to room temperature

8 oz unsalted butter softened to room temperature

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3-4 tbs half and half or whole milk

3-4 cup confectioners sugar

Beat butter and cream cheese until creamy and completely incorporated, add 2 cups of the confectioners sugar the vanilla and 2 tbs of the milk or half and half and beat. Add another cup of confectioners sugar and more milk continue to beat adding sugar and milk as needed until it reaches spreading consistency.

Sep 19

103 Comments

Classic Pound Cake

Pound Cake

There are certain things that no matter how hard I tried I was never able to find the recipe that produced a result that satisfied me. Pound cake is something I have tried to make so many times I can’t even count how many I have made that the results were disappointing. I hold every pound cake up to the Sara Lee Pound Cake, you know the one in the freezer section of the supermarket. I love that cake and have tried finding a recipe that will give me a similar result. So far I have not found it, the cakes are too heavy, the texture is not right, they don’t develop that top crust that I love among other issues. The Sara Lee cake is light as a feather and has a very dense crumb. I know, its full of stuff like preservatives etc.. but I can’t help it, I like it.

I was checking my email the other day and got one of those you need to follow emails from Twitter so I scrolled through and there it was, the title of the tweet was “How to make the perfect pound cake” that sucked me in immediately, it was from Wilton, you know them they make all manner of things for baking. I watched the video and the cake is simple to make and judging from the cake that came out of the oven in the Wilton test kitchen it looks pretty good. So I set out to make it, lets see how it is.

Just out of the oven

Perfect Pound Cake

Recipe from Wilton

1 lb (4 sticks) butter softened to room temperature

1 3/4 cup granulated sugar

6 large eggs at room temperature

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Pre heat oven to 350 degree’s. Grease a tube pan plain or decorative your call. If fluted or the pan has grooves make sure every single crease is greased. Pound cakes tend to stick and you want to make sure it comes out perfectly.

Place flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, whisk to combine and set aside.

In your stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment add the butter and sugar and cream until light in color and very fluffy. Scrape sides of pan with your rubber or silicone spatula. NOTE: Perfect mixing makes a perfect pound cake

Add your eggs one at a time mixing well between each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. Make sure the eggs are completely incorporated in the butter/sugar mixture. Add the vanilla extract and beat to combine.

Add the flour mixture and beat for EXACTLY one minute (60 seconds) scraping down sides with your spatula as needed.

Scrape batter into prepared pan, smooth the top and bake for 50-55 minutes. The cake will be golden brown. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, gently press the sides of the cake so they are loosened do the same with the middle tube. Use a small flexible offset spatula if cake needs to be further loosened. Invert onto cooling rack and let cool completely before serving. Dust with a little powdered sugar.

Looks good

The cake is pretty good, but it’s not exactly what I have been looking for although it’s closer than any of the other recipes I have tried. It will be really nice with coffee or tea or ice cream or whipped cream and berries. It would also be good with a lemon glaze. I baked it for 55 minutes and in retrospect I probably should have taken it out sooner but it didn’t seem quite done, again this could be my oven

I liked it but will keep searching for a pound cake like my favorite Sara Lee Cake. I think I am ridiculously picky sometimes. How did that Jingle go “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee”? Although good I probably won’t make it again, do any of you have a great pound cake recipe? One thats light and dense? Let me know, my quest continues.