Sunday, September 23, 2007

Packing on the Pound Cakes

It was baking time on Saturday. I have a folder on my desktop where I save all the recipes I'm waiting to try. The recent recipes anyway...there are other folders hidden deep in the recesses of my computer that I've long forgotten about...someday...someday. Well, recently I added a recipe for Pistachio Pound Cake. It was easy and the results were light and tasty. The only hard part about the recipe was dealing with shelling the pistachios.

When the cakes were done, I wrapped one up to bring to a party and give to our lovely hostess. ~~Hope you liked it!???!!! Did the baker try it? BTW: cute!


Pistachio Pound Cake
Recipe from Well Fed Network

Makes one 9 cake round or two 7×3 bread pans or one bundt pan
(method is important in the making of this pound cake, as there is no chemical leavener used. The creaming of the butter, and beating in of the eggs will help to give the cake rise)

8 ounces (one cup or two sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
12 ounces sugar
optional: one drop of green food coloring
5 eggs at room temperature
6 ounces all-purpose flour, sifted with a pinch of salt
1 cup finely ground pistachios
1 TB vanilla bean paste (or you can use the same amount of vanilla extract)
1 cup whole pistachios

-Preheat the oven to 325° F. Prepare your baking pan of choice with butter and flour.

-Cream together the butter and sugar (and the drop of food coloring if you are using it) until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes.

-Add the first four eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition, reserve the fifth egg. Add the vanilla and blend in.

- Add the flour and salt mixture and the ground pistachios and mix on low speed until the flour has just started to disappear.

-Add the fifth egg and mix to incorporate.

-Fold in the whole pistachios.

-Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour, or until the cake is golden brown and springs back when pressed with a finger.

-Cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then invert and finish cooling on a rack. Serve alone or with whipped cream or a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.


I used the green food coloring. Two drops. You can barely notice it. Which is great!

I prefer to line my pans with parchment paper. Makes the clean up easier and the cakes can be removed much easier.

Finished. The cakes came out of the oven with a bit of lift, as they cooled, they settled down and flattened a bit.

I guess over the years I had only had oily, greasy and gummy pound cakes. So nice to have a cake that is perfectly moist with plenty of buttery flavor, but not all that oil!

By following the recipe, the final cake was light and airy with a perfect crumb and plenty of great flavor.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hum !

What a nice blog !

Congratulations !

Dancer in DC said...

Yummy breakfast bread!

Anonymous said...

Yum! This is absolutely delicious! I picked up some whipped cream on your recommendation and it's perfect!
Thanks again!
-Liz