Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake

We haven't had many guests over since we've moved in. While we thought we'd have plenty of time after all of the wedding madness, we really haven't had much time to organize our new home. But, have you ever noticed that when you invite guests over, sometimes that's all it takes to get the place in order? This past weekend, we decided to put it to the test. We invited Brian's family over and got super busy with our cleaning. They really wanted to to have dinner at The Oinkster down the street, so I offered to make some coffee and dessert. I needed to make something with very little hands on-time, so I went with this recipe, for pound cake. Because I am so into my micro grater lately, I added some lemon zest and used reduced fat cream cheese. Of course, when you use 1.5 cups of butter... what difference does that really make?

I creamed together the butter, cream cheese and zest, until it was nice and smooth.

I then added sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour.

I gotta say, the batter was fabulous. (I know, you're not supposed to taste batter with raw eggs...but...ehh... I can't help it.) The taste of this batter really took me back to being a little kid and tasting the batter of my grandma's Beerok (pronounced: b-row-ck). I couldn't find a thing about Beerok online, but it's this amazing Armenian/Russian pastry which I can only describe as pastry bars with apricot jam. I knew this was going to be a good cake.

What I didn't realize when i decided to use this recipe is the 80 minute baking time. I had to delay our dinner plans by about 20 minutes, in which we started to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox. With lots of hungry people in the living room waiting, I may have rushed the cake out of the oven a few minutes early, but it was still pretty good.

It was halfway gone within minutes.

Even though I took it out a tad too early, no one seemed to mind.

The cake itself was so rich and dense that it almost tasted creamy. The touch of lemon zest also really gave this cake a summary feel, perfect with some fresh fruit, or my homemade coconut ice cream.

Our bellies couldn't be fuller and our home is finally starting to come together. Family, food, and lots of lemon zest... what else can a girl ask for?

You Say It's Your Birthday

This post is a little overdue. Brian and I both had our birthdays last May (4 days apart from each other) and we decided to have a big gathering with our friends, over at The Griffin. For the occasion, I decided to make a cake.

Personally, I'm more of a white/vanilla cake type person, but Mr. B loves the chocolate.

Since he got to choose the cake, I got to choose the filling.

My favorite way to eat chocolate cake is when it's filled with bananas and cream.

Uhhh, huhhh. Then another layer of chocolate cake. Did I mention this is triple chocolate cake? Chocolate cake, with chocolate pudding, and chocolate chips...

... oh yea, and tons of chocolate frosting.

What's this you ask?

Well, it's chocolate frosting with lots of food dye. I spread a thin, even layer of the frosting on some parchment and let it freeze for a bit. In the meantime, I also
melted some white chocolate with red food dye, placed it in this yogurt lid, and let it refrigerate until hard.

What's the point of all of this? Well... after the black frosting was good and stiff,
I peeled away the top layer of parchment and cut it into a nice circle.

I did the same with the red chocolate, making a smaller circle within the big red circle.

And what does this all make?

A cake for two record nerds like Brian and myself. I couldn't find my piping bag anywhere, so I made one out of a ziplock bag and messily piped a Happy Birthday.

The record portion of the cake was a bit frozen and stiff at first, but once it was out for a while, it started to just fit perfectly onto the cake.

Of course, when we got to the bar, I totally forgot to take utensils or plates... but that didn't stop anyone from eating the cake! Bar napkins, hands and mouths were all covered in birthday cake goodness. It was a very memorable night!

Amish Friendship Bread

How cool is this? A chain starter for bread! Genius! I was pretty excited when a friend from work offered me a starter, I hadn't even heard of Amish Friendship Bread before, but after she told me what it was all about, I couldn't refuse! Who knows how long this starter has been passed around? I just love the concept!
It all starts with a bag.

Mush the bag one day. Add ingredients the next day. Another mush here, another mush there, and after ten days, my starter was ready for some baking.

It was started to smell kind of good, which was weird, since it was still in a doughy state, but yes, this dough smelled amazing. And there's not much better than a pan lined with cinnamon and sugar....

Well, okay, this is much better. Freshly baked Amish Friendship Bread.

Oh, I love this.

And this. Look at that sugar!

This bread is definitely dangerous. It tasted like cinnamon donuts. Light, fluffy ones.

It was so moist and wonderful... and gone in 2 days.

I swear, it wasn't all me... there were friends and coworkers and boyfriends all sharing the friendship bread. Though, it wouldn't be difficult to finish these loaves on my own in two days either. The next time someone offers you Amish Friendship Bread starter, I say TAKE ONE. As for me, I can never take one again, because I will eat the entire thing in one sitting, guaranteed. It's just that tasty. It really, really is.

Let Them Eat Cake!

I sure do deserve a piece of cake right now! It's not quite my birthday yet.. but it feels a bit like Christmas! Why? Well, I just finished writing my graduate portfolio! What's that you say? It's 143 pages of photograph preserving librarianship all done and ready to go! I can't believe it. In 10 weeks, I will be done with school and back to blogging on a regular basis! Somehow, I have managed to craft during all my school-madness, so I have a lot to catch the blog up on. Since I'm celebrating over here, I thought the first piece of business to get to is this cake! I made it about 2 weeks ago, for Mr. B's mom's birthday.

I made a chocolate cake, loosely based on this recipe. Anyone notice my new toy in this picture? Uh huh... I got a brand new Kitchenaid! I had been holding out for years, because I couldn't decide what color I wanted - but when I saw Martha Stewart blue, I knew it was meant to be. We're so very happy together.

With my batter, I made 2 cake rounds. I then took little Kitchenaid for another spin to make some cream cheese frosting. With a quick, thick layer of frosting in the middle, I sandwiched my two cake layers.

I gave the cake a crumb coat and let it set for about an hour in the refrigerator.

Once set, I slopped on the rest of the frosting, all nice and textured.


I have to say, a cake like this would normally take a lot of out me to bake - but with the help of my new Kitchenaid, it was really quick and simple! And, I do believe everyone thought it was tasty too!