The Healthy My Ass Cookbook

Pound Cake

A particularly melt in your mouth version.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Remove the Butter, Margarine and Cream Cheese from the refrigerator to soften at room temperature.  Grease and flour a 10 inch bundt pan or one 9x5" loaf pan and once 8x4" loaf pan.  Combine the Salt with the Flour.

Preheat an oven to 325°F or  300°F*.

Cream the butter, margarine and cream cheese.  Slowly add in the Sugar and beat until light in color and fluffy.  Add two Eggs and beat well, then half of the flour, beat, 2 more Eggs, beat, the remaining flour, beat, and finally beat well after the addition of the remaining two Eggs.*  Stir in the Vanilla.

Spread the batter evenly in the greased and floured bundt pan or proportionally in the loaf pans, about 5 cups to 3&1/2 cups.  Bake until a split forms in the center and a toothpick inserted into it comes out clean, with the bundt and 9x5" loaf pans, about 1&1/4 hours at 325°F or 1&1/2 hours at 300°F*, and with the 8x4" loaf pan, about 1 hour at 325°F or 1&1/4 hours at 300°F*.

Cool upright in the pan(s) on a cake rack for 10 to 15 minutes then invert onto the cake rack, remove the pan, return upright and let cool completely.  Optionally lightly dust with powdered sugar.

Notes:

* After Debbie gave me this recipe I discovered that I had a nearly identical recipe from my Aunt Arlene called Cream Cheese Pound Cake.  The differences are annotated by the asterisk on Arlene's contributions.

You probably would not be surprised to learn that I've tried making this with all butter and no margarine, but I've since become convinced it comes out better with the margarine.

According to Hollywood Squares, this is called pound cake because the original recipe called for 1 pound of flour (3&5/8 cups), 1 pound of sugar (2&1/4 cups) and 1 pound of butter (2 cups).

Serving Suggestions:

Goes particularly well with sliced sweetened strawberries, or any fruit or fruit combination for that matter, and of course whipped cream.  If you made it in the bundt pan, filling the center hole with whole berries makes a nice presentation.  I recently discovered that a slice is a great place for some of my apple butter.