PERFECT POUND CAKE

I had a Mafia Wars friend request this recipe and I haven't done much recipe posting lately what with the holiday weekend and then "spring" cleaning going on for the past week (and not yet done) so here goes (adapted from a recipe at Chowhound:

PERFECT POUND CAKE:

1 cup unsalted butter
3 cups granulated sugar
8 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I play with extracts a lot, so sometimes I'll use lemon or orange or raspberry, etc. Almond extract is a particular favorite of mine)
1 cup whipping cream (I have used full fat milk in a pinch and it came out just fine, but prefer the cream)
3 cups all purpose flour (sifted three times)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt


Grease and flour two 9 X 5 inch loaf pans, or one bundt pan

DO NOT preheat oven. This cake comes out moist because of starting with a cold oven.

Whisk together all dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter and sugar 'til fluffy and nearly white. Be sure to stop mixer and scrape sides a few times. Add eggs one at a time 'til well beaten.

You will add the flour, alternating with the cream. One cup of flour, beat in, scrape sides, 1/2 cup cream, beat in, 1 cup flour, beat in scrape sides, etc. until you have used all of the flour and cream, ending with flour. Add vanilla (or extract of your choice).

If I want to marble this, when all of the batter is done, I remove about 1/3 of the batter to a suitably sized bowl and mix in 1/2 cup of cocoa powder. Then when pouring batter into the bowl, I pour in half of the plain yellow batter, add the chocolate batter slowly and evenly and cover with the remaining yellow batter.

I've considered cutting back on the sugar a bit with this, but am concerned that it would affect the texture, so I haven't messed with that yet. Since this is so rich, I limit myself to a very narrow slice. Enjoy. Take a long walk the night before to burn off all the calories and fat. :)