Well, you guys don't know that I am a baker at heart. I tweek recipes until they are as good as I can make them. I have a few that will change the way you view dessert! I'm at work now so I'll correct them when I get home. This first one should be accurate.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
People say this is the best pound cake they have tried.
All ingredients must be at room temperature.
3 Sticks Butter
3 Cups Sugar
1 8 ounce Package Cream Cheese (Don't skimp, use Philadelphia)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla (must use good vanilla, it matters--Nielsen Massey Madagascar Vanilla)
Mix these until blended well. You will have too scrape the side of the bowl 2-3 times or it will be lumpy.
If you mix it too much, you will incorporate too much air. This will cause it too rise too much and the top will be too crumbly.
6 Eggs
Mix them in1 at a time
Again, don't over mix! As soon as the yolk breaks and is mostly blended, add the next one.
Again, you will have too scrape the side of the bowl 2-3 times or it will be lumpy.
3 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder.
This is a balancing act. You want the cake to rise, but the Baking Powder will give it a very subtle, bitter taste if you use too much.
Make sure it's a powder, no lumps.
Add 2/3 of the flour to the butter mixture & mix until incorporated. Scrape the bowl and then mix in the rest. Remember, don't over mix!
Now all ovens are different. I put a piece of tin foil on the rack over the cake to keep it from over browning. I bake it for 80 minutes @ 325 degrees. I've used ovens that take 60 minutes with foil on a rack under the cake. The point is not to over bake it. That is the most important part to a great pound cake. I use 12" bamboo skewers. Poke into the center of the cake, you want it to be very moist/crumbly sticking to the skewer. I also use a 2 piece, Teflon coated, tube pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Once it's done, let it rest for 10 minute & remove it from the outer ring, and let it continue to cool from there. Then remove it from the inner piece and put it on a cake plate and cover it. Ideally, this cake needs to age 3 days. Day 1, pretty much flavorless, day 2 ok, day 3....oh yeah! The problem in my house is getting it to last until day #3!
More to come, these are special and all from scratch:
Chocolate Cake--Wow
Carrot Cake--my all time favorite
Cheese Cake--recipe from a little old Italian lady that was one of my wife's clients. She shared her recipe with me after tasting my Carrot Cake one day.
Chocolate Chip Cookies: Big with a soft middle and a slight crunch on the outside, perfect with a glass of milk. I also use a biscuit cutter to remove plugs of Vanilla Ice Cream to put between 2 cookies, then back into the freezer after wrapping them in plastic wrap.
Cinnamon Rolls with cream cheese icing. Sometimes with chopped Pecans, always with raisins. The bomb!