Cream Cheese Pound Cake

We celebrated my sons 13th birthday yesterday. Matt asked for strawberry shortcake for his birthday cake. Cole agreed and so I asked them if they wanted angel food cake, white cake or pound cake. They said it didn't make any difference to them. No difference! To me it makes a huge difference - angel food cake is too much fluff, white cake gets soggy, but pound cake, ahhh pound cake is perfect for strawberry shortcake.

I have to admit I usually turn to Sara Lee for pound cake. It's so easy and tasty. But for their birthday Sara Lee just didn't seem right, so I went on a search for a great pound cake recipe and I found a highly rated one at Epicurious. I absolutely loved this cake. It is really moist and dense, but it also, as one reviewer said, "has the sugary crispness of angel food cake."

The only problem that I had with this cake was that I overfilled my bundt pan. The recipe calls for a 12 cup bundt pan, which mine is, but it makes a lot of batter. When I was putting it in the pan, I pulled out a small loaf pan to put some of the batter in, but then decided since it was a pound cake it probably wouldn't rise much and put all the batter in the bundt pan.

I should have gone with my first instinct, because it rose above the pan and a bit spilled onto the oven. Luckily I was keeping a close eye on it and scooped it up before it started to burn and I also trimmed off a bit of the top of the cake that had grown over the side of the pan.

Despite my overfilling the pan, the cake came out beautifully and it tasted amazing. I will definitely be making this cake again! In fact, I haven't stopped thinking about it since I ate it last night!


Cream Cheese Pound Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs, room temperature
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups sifted all purpose flour

Butter and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Using electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add sugar and salt; beat 10 minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Beat in flour at low speed until batter is smooth (do not overbeat). Transfer batter to pan.

Place pan in cold oven. Set temperature at 200°F; bake 20 minutes. Increase temperature to 250°F; bake 20 minutes. Increase to 275°F; bake 10 minutes. Increase to 300°F; bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour longer. (Mine was done after 45 minutes)

Cool cake in pan on rack 15 minutes. Turn cake out onto rack; cool completely. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Wrap; store at room temperature.)