Pound Cake Dessert Sandwiches



Pound Cake Dessert Sandwich with Strawberries by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

We all know about sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and supper, now meet a dessert sandwich - juicy strawberries dripping over whole milk ricotta, between two slices of buttery pound cake. This inspired and summery dessert comes from Susan Russo's delightful new cookbook, "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches: Recipes, History and Trivia for Everything Between Two Slices of Bread." (Quirk, 2011).


The recipe is a terrific use for stale or leftover pound cake. It reminds me a little bit of the treat my husband's grandmother would fry up for him - mayonnaise-coated pound cake slices. Macerate some sliced strawberries in orange juice and zest, griddle the pound cake slices, spread with rich ricotta, and assemble all for a tasty dessert.

Begin with a loaf of my home-baked cream cheese pound cake, the only pound cake recipe you will ever need. Gather some berries and ricotta and you're in business.

Pound Cake Sandwich: The Ultimate Dessert Sandwich
from "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches" by Susan Russo (Quirk, 2011)

Macerated Strawberries

2 to 2 1/2 cups fresh ripe strawberries, thinly sliced *see note
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
3 tablespoons orange juice
Zest of 1 small orange
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

About 2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 pound cake, sliced thin
1 (8-ounce) container whole-milk ricotta or mascarpone

1. A few hours beforehand, prepare strawberries: In a glass bowl, combine all ingredients for macerated strawberries. Toss well. Let rest at room temperature at least two hours.

2. Butter both sides of cake slices. Place on a hot buttered griddle and cook 2 minutes per side, or until golden. Remove from heat. For each sandwich, spread 2 tablespoons ricotta on one slice of grilled cake, top with a spoonful of berries, and close sandwich. Serve warm. Makes 4 to six, depending on the thickness of the cake.

* Frozen strawberries can be substituted for fresh; just reduce the amount of orange juice since frozen berries will release more liquid.

Check out more sandwich recipes from "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches":

• Chicken salad from the Loveless Cafe
• The Jucy Lucy cheese-stuffed burger.

Luscious Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake (for National Pound Cake Day)

Lemon cream cheese pound cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I'm not sure how or why there is a National Pound Cake Day, but here it is the 4th day of March, in the holiday lull between St. Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day and I guess somebody needed an excuse to bake. Pound cake is as good an excuse as any, I suppose.

The classic pound cake requires a pound of each ingredient - butter to sugar to flour to eggs. Without leavening, this makes for a large, dense cake. Modern cakes tend to fudge on the ratio. My go-to recipe has a ratio of approximately 1.25 pounds fat (combined cream cheese and butter) : .75 pound sugar : .75 pound flour : .6 pound eggs.

Looking for a new flavor, I dug out a cookbook that has hugged my pantry shelf for at least 15 years - "The Pound Cake Cookbook" by Bibb Jordan (Longstreet Press, 1994). It's a darling little book, cover price $8.95, with nearly 40 recipes from Chocolate Cherry Pound Cake to Savory Cheese Pound Cake. My eyes locked on "Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake" - I'm a sucker for anything with lemon - lemon cookies, lemon curd, lemon meringue pie, lemon bars.

This recipe is surprising, first with the self-rising flour. Pound cakes are traditionally leavened only with eggs, which can make for a leaden leaven. I personally like a dense texture, but this lighter cake is a winner, too. Because of the leavening, it bakes faster, in under an hour, and has a lighter, spongier texture. It’s perfect for a spring dessert. With Easter and Mother’s Day falling within two weeks of each other, this would make an excellent cake for the holiday table. The cake is pretty with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, but I like the puckery tart sweetness of the lemon glaze.

Lemons by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze

Adapted from The Pound Cake Cookbook by Bibb Jordan (Longstreet Press, 1994)



3 medium lemons, zested and juiced

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 ounces 1/3-less-fat (Neufchatel) cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

6 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon lemon extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Prepare a tube or Bundt pan with baking spray or butter and flour.

2. In large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and cream cheese. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs two at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. Add flour, lemon zest, lemon extract and two tablespoons of lemon juice (reserve remainder of juice for lemon glaze), beating until flour is incorporated and batter is smooth and free of lumps.

4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 325. Cake is done when tester comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack. While cake is cooling, prepare the Lemon Glaze.

Lemon Glaze

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 to 1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar

1. In a medium bowl, combine lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar. Whisk until combined and lump-free. If the glaze is lumpy, whisk vigorously, then let sit for 10 minutes or so, the lumps will be absorbed.

2. Glaze lemon pound cake while still warm.

My little kitchen helper wanted to decorate the cake, and she just happened to have a box of Valentine hearts....

Lemon Pound Cake with Valentines by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The artist and her creation. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Happy National Pound Cake Day! Don't forget to leave cake for the elves!

 

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Bake a chocolate pound cake for the ones you love

Chocolate pound cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

A homemade cake is a nice thing to have around the house during a long weekend, or perhaps you want to bake a gift for a friend. This chocolate pound cake fills the bill. It's not a death-by-chocolate type cake, just a pleasing cocoa taste and tender texture. With a bit of chocolate glaze, it  makes a kid-pleasing birthday cake.

Chocolate Pound Cake

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Grease a Bundt or tube pan with nonstick spray. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 

2. In a separate bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add vanilla.

3. Pour batter into a Bundt or tube pan and place in a 325 degree oven. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. Cake is done when toothpick inserted in center is clean. Remove cake from oven and let cool on wire rack.

Look for more ideas for gifts from the kitchen like Orange Pecan Coconut Balls , Roasted Almonds and my never-the-same-way-twice Ranch Snack Mix on A Cook and Her Books. Looking for cookies? Try Scottish Shortbread and Macadamia Tassies.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Bake a pound cake for friends, family & teachers

Cream cheese pound cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 True confession: I was the kind of kid who went off to college and baked. That's right, the only graduate of the University of Georgia who spent her Friday and Saturday nights creaming butter and sugar together and preheating the oven. I'm still not too sure why I didn't channel this enthusiasm for the never-ending possibilities of the butter-sugar-flour matrix into a food-related career, but the truth is, I spent my extra hours at college baking cakes. I tried all manner of pound cakes and baked them in loaves so that I could distribute them to friends and co-workers. I tried lemon-glazed pound cakes, sour cream pound cakes, and eventually found this recipe for a cream cheese pound cake that has been my best baking friend for two decades. It makes a lovely Bundt cake, but really shines as a loaf cake, with the typical San Andreas Fault line running through the middle. The crust is crispy and shattery, the interior is buttery and tender. 

This recipe will yield two loaves or one Bundt cake. I've made four batches of this cake in the past week, to distribute to teachers, friends and family at Christmas.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened

3 cups granulated sugar

6 eggs

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese (neufchatel acceptable), room temperature and divided into three equal pieces

pinch salt

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Use baking spray to coat inside of Bundt pan or tube pan or 2 loaf pans.

2. In mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar for several minutes. When fully incorporated and no longer grainy, add eggs and cream cheese alternately. This means two eggs, fully mixed in, piece of cream cheese, fully mixed in, followed by eggs and cream cheese two more times. When batter is creamy and smooth, add, on low speed, flour and pinch salt. Stir in vanilla extract.

3. Pour batter into prepared pans and smooth the top with a spatula. Cake bakes in 325 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.The cake is ready when a narrow bamboo skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cake cool on rack for at least an hour before giving in to the luscious vanilla and butter smell and slicing generous portions for your starving family.

Look for more ideas for gifts from the kitchen like orange pecan coconut balls , roasted almonds and my never-the-same-way-twice snack mix on A Cook and Her Books. Looking for Christmas cookies? Try Scottish Shortbread and Macadamia Tassies.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Little Black Dress of Cakes

Pound Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I'm sure I'm not the first writer to make this baking analogy, but then, I'm probably not the first baker to make this cake. Every cook needs a few great recipes that they can commit to memory and pull out whenever the occasion warrants. A little black dress, one might say, just the right thing for any occasion, casual or dressy, winter, spring, summer or fall. Coco Chanel knew that when she designed the LBD, and good cooks should follow her lead.

Cooking LBD's should most certainly include a roast chicken, a special potato something and a perfect vinaigrette for a simple salad. And for dessert, something picked up from the local patisserie? I think not. Especially since the local patisserie, like the boulangerie, is a chain grocery store with a bakery known for making specialty cakes from mixes. My dessert LBD is pound cake, that church potluck staple, dense and buttery and just crying out for strawberries and real whipped cream.

My first chef, my mom, didn't really like kids hanging out in the kitchen, but she would let me make cakes and pound cakes were one of the first I tried. I have made sour cream pound cakes, which are wonderful, including a chocolate pound cake that is to live for. For a time, I was enamored with a recipe that required separating the eggs, beating the whites and folding them into the butter-rich batter. The texture and flavor were wonderful, but I consider separating eggs as enjoyable as emptying the dishwasher. Time to try more recipes.

In a cake decorating class, I was horrified when I was given a pound cake recipe that included Crisco shortening. Crisco? In a pound cake? That's for biscuits, never pound cake. All butter, and only butter, that's the way to go.

I found the perfect pound cake recipe in a community cookbook on my mom's shelf. It was called "Evelyn's Pound Cake." I call it a cream cheese pound cake. This recipe has been around awhile, and my version is not much different than the original. It is always reliable and will win you friends. Start making this cake regularly, take it to work, share it with your family, give thick slices to neighbors. Bake petite loaves and give them at Christmas with a small jar of homemade lemon curd. And before long, like Coco Chanel, you will soon be known for inimitable style and unparalleled taste.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese (neufchatel acceptable), room temperature and divided into three equal pieces
pinch salt
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Use baking spray to coat inside of Bundt pan or tube pan or 2 loaf pans.

2. In mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar for several minutes. When fully incorporated and no longer grainy, add eggs and cream cheese alternately. This means two eggs, fully mixed in, piece of cream cheese, fully mixed in, followed by eggs and cream cheese two more times. When batter is creamy and smooth, add, on low speed, flour and pinch salt. Stir in vanilla extract.

3. Pour batter into prepared pans and smooth the top with a spatula. Cake bakes in 325 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. In my kitchen, I bake the cake in a Bundt pan and set the oven at 325 on convection and it takes nearly two hours to bake. The cake is ready when a narrow bamboo skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cake cool on rack for at least an hour before giving in to the luscious vanilla and butter smell and slicing generous portions for your starving family.