Archive for May, 2010

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Pound cake. When I hear those two words I think of moist, sweet bread with a delicious brown crust. Pound cake takes me back to the days when I’d break off pieces and squeeze them in my hand to make tiny pound cake balls. I’ve often wondered why it’s called pound cake. My first thought is that there’s a pound of butter in it but in this recipe there is only (ha-ha) 3/4 pounds of butter. I did some research and the reason it’s called pound cake is because traditionally there is a pound each of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs.
The pound cake I made comes from, wait for it, Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.
I used 3 sticks of butter, one package of cream cheese, 2 and a half cups of sugar, 6 large eggs, salt, vanilla, baking powder, and 3 cups of flour. I divided the dough into a loaf pan and a square baking and at 330F it took less than an hour to bake.
I may have beat the dough a bit too much, causing it to turn a little airy. I also didn’t use eggs at room temperature and the coldness from the eggs made the butter (also at room temperature) temporarily curdle. No worries though because the cake is fantastically moist and perfectly sweet. It’s a brilliant choice for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

Heart of Darkness Brownies

Some days you just feel like your body can’t continue to hold and support all the day’s worries, late lunches, mistakes, and over-all fatigue. All you really want to do after work is curl up on the couch and watch re-runs of Family Guy.
A few days ago at work, I volunteered to bake brownies for a co-worker’s birthday and it was the night before his birthday and I felt the way I just described above. I wanted to hop in my pjs and veg out in front of the TV but instead I pulled out all the necessary ingredients to make Heart of Darkness Brownies from  Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth. All the recipes I’ve tried from this book are incredibly amazing and so I trust this book so much that I made these brownies for my co-workers despite the fact I’d never made them before. I had no idea if the brownies would turn out but I had (and have) faith in the book.
Upon reluctantly rolling up my sleeves and unwrapping the block of butter the knowledge that I would soon bake something somehow lifted my spirits and I felt more peppy. I felt even happier seeing that these brownies were nothing more than a cup and a half of butter, 6 squares of unsweetened chocolate, 6 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of brown sugar, chocolate bars, chocolate chips, nuts, and of course flour, and salt. In the book it says to use muffin tins but as I mentioned already I was feeling lazy so I split the batter and poured it into two square pans. That meant, of course, that I had to bake them longer for 30 minutes or so.
My goodness, these brownies could have mended any broken heart (as Jill says in the book) or in my case, scared away all the lethargy taking refuge in my body. They were thick and disgustingly rich in the middle with a firm layer on top. Each bite was slightly different because you didn’t know if you’d get a chunk of pecan or a piece from a Snickers bar. To make it even more messy to eat, I topped the brownies with multi-coloured mini marshmallows, which perfectly puffed and melted in the oven giving the brownies a nice fruity goo on top.
I’ll be making these brownies again but next time, I’ll listen to Jill and use muffin cups because cutting melted, chewy marshmallow and gooey brownie is a bitch.
Recipe can be found here.