Recipe: Cream Cheese Pound Cake

This delectable pound cake makes a fabulous strawberry shortcake. This is now my cake of choice for my birthday. (None of my pictures turned out, sorry!)

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Ingredients
1-1/2 c. butter, room temperature
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
3 c. white sugar
1 t. vanilla extract + 1 t. almond extract (or 2 t. vanilla)
6 eggs, room temperature
3 c. cake flour (1 c. cake flour = 1 c. all-purpose flour less 2 T.)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease one 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan.
2. Cream together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light. Stir in the vanilla and the almond extracts. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides. Add flour slowly just until mixed well. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not overbake.

Cook’s Note: By creaming the butter and sugar and eggs, air becomes trapped in the batter, eliminating the need for modern leaving agents (baking soda or powder). This is not for the faint-hearted, but it is WELL worth the effort. The texture is so fine and tasty that you won't mind the extra work. If you are going to be eating this pound cake with frosting, ice cream, strawberry glaze, or whipped cream, you may want to only use 2-1/2 cups sugar. A traditional American pound cake would contain one pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar.

Strawberry Glaze
by Alana Lee

Ingredients
1 c. water
3 T. lemon juice
1 c. sugar
3 T. cornstarch
1 c. strawberries, smashed
2-4 c. strawberries

Combine the cold water, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch in a saucepan. Add smashed strawberries. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and cool. Add a few cups strawberries to the cooled glaze, as desired. Divine on pound cake with or without whipped cream!

Recipe: Country Pumpkin Muffins

These are so good, they're like little pumpkin cupcakes.

Country Pumpkin Muffins
by Alana Lee

Ingredients
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 c. canned pumpkin
3 c. all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. ground cloves
3/4 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
1 t. salt
1-1/2 c. raisins (optional)

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar, oil, eggs, and pumpkin. Combine flour, baking powder, soda, spices and salt. Add to pumpkin mixture; blend well. Fold in raisins. Spoon into greased muffin tins, filling 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

2. Frost with cream cheese frosting recipe (toward end of Cinnamon Roll post).

Cook's Note: I substitute half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. It still tastes amazing.