I’ve finally discovered my favourite kind of pound cake- a cream cheese one! It’s unbelievably rich with a beautiful golden crust on the outside and a moist and tender crumb on the inside- the definition of perfection.

I don’t know about you, but I was never really a fan of pound cakes and I’m not so sure as to why. I guess they were too basic? Or always a tad bit dense for my liking. But up until now, I’d only tried out the ones that my dad bought from the bakeries nearby and they made a great tea-time snack but I just didn’t get the hype.

So then my sister tried baking her own version of a tea cake which turned out amazing. And then I got inspired to bake my own tea cake as well and it tasted heavenly- but both of them were a moist and soft vanilla cake, not a pound cake which has a slightly denser crumb. The kind that will hold its shape quite well when it’s cut and can often even be dipped in chai without it crumbling.

Upon thorough research I discovered that a pound cake gets it’s name from back in the day when they didn’t have measuring scales or cups (or even proper ovens for that matter) and they weighed out (by comparison) a pound of flour, butter and sugar along with 4 eggs to whip up a delicious dessert. And even to this date, that’s basically what it is. Except we add a bit of vanilla extract to amp up it’s flavour.

So that is what I was going to bake, until I came across 2-3 bloggers that had their own variations of the usual pound cake. One that included cream cheese, lemon and blueberries. And so I thought it would be a great idea to follow their variations instead of sticking to the basics (as you can tell, I’m quite extra when it comes to baking)!!

Thus came into existence this wonderfully soft cream cheese pound cake with sweet and crisp edges- a cake which lived up to it’s hype. I was afraid the cake would be way too dense but I was mistaken. It did have a tighter crumb in comparison to other cakes I’ve baked, but that didn’t stop it from being really moist.

And since I drizzled over some leftover cream cheese frosting over it, the hint of sweet cream cheese from that with the vanilla-y cake just made my day!! Though even if you don’t want to go the extra mile with some frosting, you could just serve it as is, or with some icing sugar dusted on top along with some chopped nuts and that would taste great too!

(This recipe is adapted from joyofbaking, grandbabycakes and divascancook.)

Ingredients

180 gms or 3/4 cup butter (softened at room temperature)

120 gms cream cheese (softened at room temperature)

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs (room temperature)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups flour

4 tablespoons cornflour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 170C. Butter and line a 10×5 inch loaf pan or a small bundt pan. In a large bowl, whisk together your butter and cream cheese for 2 minutes on medium speed. Add in the sugar and whisk for about 3-4 minutes until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time, whisking well before each addition. Add in the vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift your flour, cornflour and baking powder. Mix everything well using a fork. Add the dry ingredients in increments into the butter and cheese mixture and fold using a spatula/ metal spoon. Place your mixture into the baking pan and bake for around 45-60 minutes until lightly golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Let it cool for around 30 minutes before serving.

As you can tell, this is a pretty simple recipe that yields great results. I hope you give this a try and come to understand the beauty of a classic pound cake through this recipe as I did. Let me know if you give this recipe a try!

Until next time,

Happy Baking! 🙂

xx