As we all know it's strawberry season and in my humble opinion, good strawberries require good pound cake. And really, on the last day of exams, what could be better? Now as far as cakes go, pound cake is one of the easiest, it doesn't even have to be frosted, just topped with fresh whipped cream. The following is the recipe I used, sorry there aren't more pictures, it was just too tasty not to break into right out of the oven!
One cake requires:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups All Purpose flour (cake flour works too)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
Instructions:
1.Do not preheat oven! This cake goes into a cold oven because it needs to come to temperature gradually or it doesn't cook evenly.
2.Oil and flour a 9 inch bread pan.
3. Mix flour and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
4.Mix cream, vanilla and almond extract together and set aside.
5.In a larger bowl, using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
6.Add eggs and yolk one at a time, fully incorporating one before adding the next.
7.Add flour mix in three parts alternating with cream mix, start and end with flour. (progression should be 1/3flour mix->1/2 cream mix->1/3 flour mix->1/2 cream mix->1/3 flour mix) Be careful not to over beat but make sure everything is well mixed
8.Pour mixture into baking pan smoothing out the top with a spatula.
9.Put pan in oven and turn on to 350F
10.Bake for 1 hour, take out and let cool 5 mins in pan before transferring it to a cooling wrack.
11.Enjoy with strawberries and fresh whipped cream!!!
