Bready or Not: Limed-Up Cream Cheese Pound Cake
For our second installment of CAKE/PIE MONTH, I present a tender, moist pound cake that’s embodied with a fresh lime flavor!
To glaze this cake, I tested out a technique I saw on the Great British Baking Show. It worked like a charm, and it’s something I’ll do with all of my poke cakes in a bundt pan from here onward.
If you haven’t seen the Great British Baking Show (known in the UK by its original moniker of Great British Bake Off), GO SEE IT. It’s on Netflix, YouTube, and the PBS website. This is the show that helped me to survive my edits for Breath of Earth and to write Call of Fire in one month. Not only is it about creating lovely baked goods, it’s about achieving technical, chemical perfection in a reality show environment that is completely positive. No back-stabbing, no contrived drama.
The bakers work under an extraordinary time crunch. In one episode, a baker needed to glaze a bundt cake very quickly. They poked the cake all over and put it back in the pan to pour the glaze. This way, most of the glaze went INSIDE the cake, as intended for a poke cake, and did not puddle the plate.
I watched. Mind. Blown.
The technique totally works. My bundt cake was perfectly moist all the way through because the glaze had a chance to soak in from all angles.
This bundt cake has such a lovely flavor to go along with the moist texture, too. This is the kind of cake that is perfect for breakfast, brunch, or dessert, and is great with fruit, ice cream, or a simple cup of coffee.
It would be great to eat while watching the Great British Baking Show.
Modified from Relish Magazine.
Bready or Not: Limed-Up Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter 3 sticks, room temperature
- 8 ounces cream cheese 1 box, room temperature
- 3 cups white sugar
- 6 large eggs room temperature
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 limes zested and juiced
Glaze:
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1/2 stick
- 3 Tablespoons lime juice
- 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar optional for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F. Thoroughly grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat in eggs alternately with flour, mixing well after each addition. Add salt, vanilla extract, almond extract, and the zest and juice of both limes. Mix until combined, taking care not to overbeat. That could dry out the cake.
- Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes and then plop it onto a rack to cool some more. Don't wash the pan yet!
- While the cake is still warm, use skewers or chopsticks to poke holes all over the top.
- Mix the glaze ingredients (sugar, butter, lime juice) in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil for about one minute, then remove from heat.
- Set the cake back inside the pan; poke more holes in the base of the cake. Slowly pour or ladle glaze over the holes. Let that soak in. Use over half the glaze, then carefully tip the cake onto a cake plate. Slowly drizzle the rest of the glaze into the holes.
- Let the cake cool completely. Add dusting of powdered sugar before serving
- OM NOM NOM!
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EBOOK SALE: Clockwork Dagger $1.99, Clockwork Crown $2.99!
To build up to the release of Breath of Earth in two weeks, Harper Voyager has set ebooks for Clockwork Dagger and Clockwork Crown on sale. A BIG sale. Clockwork Dagger is $1.99 and Clockwork Crown is $2.99; both are usually $10.99!
(Psst. If you already own these books and want to give them as gift ebooks, it’s very easy to do so through Amazon or Barnes & Noble!)
Clockwork Dagger: Amazon Kindle | Barnes & Noble Nook | Kobo | iTunes
Clockwork Crown: Amazon Kindle | Barnes & Noble Nook | Kobo | iTunes
Please help spread the word. Feel free to grab the graphic above and share on your site or social media. Thanks!
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Sunday Quote rejoices over Cake Month
Read More“A story is a narrative description of a character struggling to solve a problem. Nothing more, nothing less.”
~Ben Bova
Bready or Not: Maple Sour Cream Bundt Cake
IT IS BOOK RELEASE MONTH. IT IS CAKE AND PIE MONTH. Oddly enough, the emphasis will be on maple. Gee, you might think I like the stuff.
I am starting out with what might be the best bundt cake recipe I have ever made. Yes, it even rivals the infamous Tunnel of Fudge Cake.
This recipe is extremely close in flavor and texture to the holy-moley-amazing Maple Walnut Cake, minus the walnuts. The Maple Walnut Cake is stunning to eat but it’s also very time-consuming to make because it’s a layer cake.
This bundt cake is EASY. It whips together in no time.
The cake itself is like a moist pound cake–soft, tender, and sweet with maple.
I opted for a glaze rather than a frosting. Tweak the liquids to make that as thick as you want, but really, the cake is sweet on its own so you don’t need a big layer here.
Some of these pictures look almost pornographic, don’t they?
Yes, the glaze is as good as it looks. You can’t go wrong with powdered sugar, cinnamon, butter, and maple flavor. Well. I guess you can go wrong if you’re diabetic.
CONSUME AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Modified from Overtime Cook.
Bready or Not: Maple Sour Cream Bundt Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, room temperature
- 1 cup white sugar
- 5 eggs room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon maple flavor optional but recommended
- 1 cup pure maple syrup NOT flavored pancake syrup
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sour cream
Glaze
- 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar sifted
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 Tb unsalted butter melted
- 3/4 tsp maple flavor or vanilla extract
- 1 Tb water more as needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325-degrees. Spray a bundt pan with nonstick spray with added flour, or grease well and sift flour over the surface.
- In large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour in the vanilla extract, maple flavor, and maple syrup.
- In a small bowl, sift together the baking powder and flour. Add some of the flour mix to the big bowl, followed by sour cream, going back and forth until all of the cake ingredients are mixed together.
- Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until it passes the toothpick test. Let it cool for about ten minutes in the pan and then carefully plop the cake onto a wire rack to completely cool down. Once it is room temperature, it's time to glaze.
- Mix together all of the glaze ingredients together EXCEPT the water. Dribble in the water. Stir well. Add more water if needed to achieve desired consistency.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Clockwork Dagger collection DEEP ROOTS is out today!
Hooray, hooray, it’s publication day! Deep Roots is an omnibus of my three previously-published ebook-only works set in the world of The Clockwork Dagger. This includes two stories, Deepest Poison and Final Flight, and the Nebula-nominated novella Wings of Sorrow and Bone. Together, they are a 208-page volume that is available as a mass-market paperback for $4.99 and as an ebook for $2.99!
Amazon: paperback or ebook | Barnes & Noble: paperback or ebook | Kobo | Google Play | iTunes
Included are:
THE DEEPEST POISON
Octavia Leander, a young healer with incredible powers, has found her place among Miss Percival’s medicians-in-training. Called to the front lines of war, the two women must uncover the source of a devastating illness that is killing thousands of soldiers.
WINGS OF SORROW AND BONE
After being rescued from the slums of Caskentia, Rivka Stout is adjusting to her new life in Tamarania. But when Rivka stumbles into a laboratory run by the powerful Balthazar Cody, she also discovers a sinister plot involving chimera gremlins and the violent Arena game Warriors.
FINAL FLIGHT
Captain Hue hoped he was rid of his troubles once Octavia Leander and Alonzo Garrett disembarked from his airship, but then the Argus is commandeered by a Clockwork Dagger and forced on a deadly mission. Hue must lead a mutiny that might bring down his own ship…. perhaps for good.
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