Happy 4th of July!

How about celebrating with this Red, White and Blue Cream Cheese Poundcake, except I used blackberries instead of blueberries. The cream cheese makes this cake dense and moist, with the tang of the cream cheese, mixed with the sweetness of the berries and you can't resist another piece! This is another link that Beth sent my way and you can find the original recipe here.

Happy 4th of July!! Have a safe and fun day celebrating our freedom!

Red, White, and Blueberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, but not quite room temperature

1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened slightly

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

6 ounces raspberries

6 ounces fresh blueberries---I used blackberries

lemon glaze (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray, and place on a cookie sheet.

2. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and cream cheese. Pour in sugar and mix until smooth. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing well until each is incorporated.

3. While ingredients are mixing, whisk together four, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Slowly add flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

4. Fold berries into batter.

5. Distribute batter evenly into pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45-50 minutes. Let cool completely. Drizzle with lemon glaze.

Lemon Glaze
2 cups powdered sugar

juice of 1 lemon

2-3 tablespoons heavy cream

Mix all ingredients together until smooth. Add more juice or cream as necessary to achieve desired consistency.

I'm back with a Coconut Cream Cheese Pound Cake!

I have been away from here for way too long! I don't intend on staying away like this again, I have missed you guys! So, what better way to make a come back than this pound cake? You will want to try this one! I am not really a coconut lover, it seems that the older I get, the more I can tolerate it, but I really think that I could eat this whole cake. Maybe because it makes me think of a tropical island. Not sure, but I really like it! Sweet, coconutty, moist...just delicious!

I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday!!

Coconut Cream Cheese Pound Cake

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 8oz cream cheese, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups flaked coconut
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp coconut extract

Beat butter, shortening and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating 5-7 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition just until yellow disappears.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in coconut, vanilla, and coconut extract.

Pour batter into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 30-40 minutes (mine only baked for 1 hour and 10 minutes), or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10-15 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

Caramel Pound Cake with Caramel Glaze

If you are a caramel lover and love poundcake too, this is the cake for you! Easy to put together a little over an hour in the oven, easy as....well, cake. I can honestly say that I have never made this cake before now, and I am kicking myself in the behind. I should have made it a long time ago!!

Caramel Pound Cake

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed (I only had light brown sugar, so I used 2 cups of it)

1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup oil

5 large eggs

3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat butter until creamy; add sugar until blended. Add oil until blended. Add eggs 1 at a time beating until yellow disappears. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Add the vanilla. Beat at low speed just until blended.

Pour batter into a greased 10 inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes and remove from pan. Cool completely before drizzling with glaze.

Caramel glaze:

1 pkg (16 oz) light brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 can (5oz) evaporated milk (I used 2% milk)

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

Bring first 4 ingredients to a boil in a medium saucepan. Boil, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add baking powder and vanilla. Mix occasionally while mixture cools and thickens. When it is cooled enough to drizzle, pour on top of cake. It took mine about 15 minutes to get to this thickness.

Dark Chocolate Soup with Cinnamon-Toasted Poundcake Croutons

(Yes, I know...bad lighting!!!)

This recipe comes from Jill O'Connor's book, Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. This has got to be the cutest book that I have seen. I have had it for a while and have only made these. Flipping through the pages on a rainy day, this recipe just called me out and said...yes, you know you want me....well, I have to admit that I did. Except, I was thinking, by the look of the picture, that it was like a chocolate pudding, and that you would eat it warm. It is not like that at all. Now, don't get me wrong, it was very good, very chocolaty, what do you expect with 24 ounces of chocolate and 6 cups of half and half. But, it was exactly what it said...soup. Slurping from a spoon, soup. I am pretty positive that I don't like chocolate soup. I will probably make this again, but will use it as a hot chocolate drink.

On the other hand, the croutons. How can you go wrong with pound cake, butter, cinnamon and sugar? These were great just to snack on!

For the soup:

1/2 Cup sugar

1/4 Cup water

pinch of salt

6 Cups half and half

2 tsp instant espresso powder

24 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used semisweet)

Combine the sugar and water in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook, gently swirling the pan occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and starts to change color. Increase the heat to high and boil until the syrup turns a deep amber color, 4-5 minutes. Watch carefully, as it can burn quickly. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and add the salt and half and half. Use a long handled wooded spoon to carefully stir in the half and half, as the caramel has a tendency to hiss and splash as the cold cream hits it. Bring the mixture just to a gentle boil, stirring to dissolve the caramel into the half and half, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the espresso powder and chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Divide the soup into 8 shallow bowls and top with croutons.

For the crouton:

1 loaf of your favorite pound cake

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the broiler. Cut a razor thin slice from both ends of the pound cake to reveal the interior. Cut the trimmed loaf of pound cake crosswise into 8 equal slices. Trim each slice to form perfect, uniform, squares. Stir the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Brush both sides of the pound cake slices with the melted butter and sprinkle generously with the cinnamon sugar. Place the slices on a large baking sheet and broil until the sugar on top stars to bubble and turn brown, 1-2 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, turn the slices over, and broil the second sides in the same way. Transfer the sheet to a wire rack to cool. use a serrated knife to carefully cut each slice into 4 equal squares.

An Easter Tea

Risa over at The Par Tea Planner is hosting a first day of Spring Tea. I absolutely love nothing more than to get some girls together for tea. But, the first day of Spring this year is on the 20th and on a Thursday, and during the week is just hard for me to put things together, so this tea took place this past Saturday. I had a couple of girlfriends over and we had a wonderful time of conversation and just really enjoying girlie time with no interruptions.


I had wanted to take tons of pictures of my set table, but, halfway through and my batteries died and there were no more in the house..so, I had to recreate a few of the pictures.


So here is what was the menu:
Hot Orange Spice Tea, complete with sugar cubes and
Hot chocolate, with marshmallows (I had these left over from my CH entry, and they were still fresh!)

Iced Tea

Cucumber and Cream Cheese Sandwiches
Egg Salad Sandwiches

Buttermilk Scones with mock devonshire cream and lemon curd


Pound cake finger sandwiches
Individual Cheesecakes with chocolate sauce and strawberries
Chocolate covered strawberries
Individual Creme Brulees in egg shells

To finish off:
Peppermint patties
Ducks filled with pecans and caramel

Here are some pictures, and the recipes will follow:

Here are the buttermilk scones and pound cake finger sandwiches:

Buttermilk Scones from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman

4 Cups all-purpose flour

1/2 Cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 Cups unsalted butter, cut into chunks or shredded and frozen

1 large egg

1 1/4 Cups buttermilk

Finishing Touches:

Milk or melted butter, for brushing

Sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stack two baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchment paper. Arrange oven rack to upper third position.

Ina food processor bowl, add flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda and blend briefly. Add butter and pulse to make a coarse, grainy mixture. Turn out into a large bowl. Make a well in center; add egg and most of buttermilk and stir lightly with a fork to blend. Add remaining buttermilk if needed to make a soft shaggy dough.

Turn out mixture onto a lightly floured work surface and knead 8-10 times until mixture is just barely roll able. Pat or roll out to 1-inch thickness and cut into 3-inch wedges with a cookie cutter. To do this, cut a 4-inch circle and then cut it in half. This will give you nice wedges. Place wedges on prepared baking sheets. Brush tops with milk or melted butter and dust with sugar.

Bake until golden, about 12-15 minutes.

Pound Cake Finger Sandwiches:

Slice your favorite pound cake, such as this one

melted semi sweet chocolate

8 oz cream cheese, room temp

1/4 cup strawberry preserves

Slice pound cake to the thickness that you want, coat one side with chocolate. Let the chocolate cool so that it hardens.

Mix the cream cheese and preserves together and spread between 2 slices of pound cake, so that it is sandwiched. I then cut it into 3 pieces.

Next, creme brulees in egg shells:

I borrowed this recipe from Tartlette, so go check her out to get this recipe. The hardest part of this was trying to crack the egg so that you only broke the top off. But, other than that, it was fairly easy.


Here are the Chocolate dipped strawberries and mini cheesecakes:



Here are the little ducks and peppermint patties:


Bunny Napkins:


The Beverage Table:

And finally, these were the parting gifts:

These little purses were filled with peanut butter and caramel.

Wow, this was a long post...Hopefully, I didn't leave anything out. :)

Happy Easter!

TWD-Perfection Pound Cake

This week's TWD was chosen by Laurie, Perfection Pound cake. Again, this will be a make again recipe. It is very easy to put together, it only took me about - minutes to get it all together. It is a very thick better, but very tasty! I also tried it with some red current jam that I received from my friend Molly over at Batter Splattered. The tartness from the jam, along with the buttery sweetness of this pound cake is wonderful!

Don't forget to check out Laurie and Michelle to see how their pound cake turned out, as well as our newest partner in crime, Jaime. I am so glad to have her join us!!

Perfection Pound Cake

by: Dorie Greenspan

2 Cups all-purpose flour or 2 1/4 Cups cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temp

1 Cup sugar

4 large eggs, at room temp

1 tsp vanilla

Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9X5 inch loaf pan or an 8 1/2X4 1/2 inch loaf pan. Put the pan on an insulated baking sheet or on two regular baking sheets stacked one on top of the other.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until pale and fluffy, a full 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and beater and reduce the mixer speed to medium. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1-2 minutes after each egg goes in. As you're working, scrape down the bowl and the beater often. Mix in the vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, mixing only until it is incorporated-don't over mix. In fact, you might want to fold in the last of the flour, or even all of it, by hand with a rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top.

Put the cake into the oven to bake, and check on it after about 45 minutes. If it's browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent. If you're using a 9X5 pan, you'll need to bake the cake for 70-75 minutes; the smaller pan needs about 90 minutes. The cake is properly baked when a thin knife inserted keep into the center comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven, transfer the pan to a rack and let rest for 30 minutes.

Run a blunt knife between the cake and the sides of the pan and turn the cake out, then turn it right side up on the rack and cool to room temperature.

Lemon-Buttermilk Poundcake

Lemon desserts run really close to chocolate desserts in being my favorite. I love anything lemon..but then again, I really like anything sweet. Go figure.... Anyways, this will be a recipe that I refer to again and again to make for anything. It is dense like a pound cake should be, but moist from the lemon vanilla simple syrup you make to brush over it while it is still warm, so that all this yumminess soaks all the way through. Maybe the only thing that I would do differently would be to maybe add a thin lemon glaze to it after it cools, but it is just fine without it.

Lemon Buttermilk Pound cake
1/2 lb. butter, at room temperature
2 Cups Sugar
2 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
4 large eggs
1/3 Cup lemon juice, about large lemons
2 tsp. vanilla
3 egg yolks
1/2 Cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp. grated lemon zest

For the simple syrup:
1/2 Cup water
1/2 Cup sugar
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla

Prepare a 10 inch bundt pan-buttered and then floured.

Combine butter, sugar, flour and baking powder in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Combine remaining ingredients into a bowl and add to mixer in 3 additions, beating 1 minutes between each addition. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake about 1 hour. Place cake on cooking rack in pan.

Prepare the simple syrup: Combine water and sugar in saucepan and bring to a boil until sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice and vanilla. Unmold the cake and brush the syrup over the cake-allow to cool.