A Midsummer Night's Dream: Cherry Pound Cake...

When life gives you a bowl of cherries you must make this!

Here she is... fresh out of the oven... sprinkled with powdered sugar
because powdered sugar makes everything look prettier!

And because my little fingers couldn't keep to themselves and I had to cover up the little dent I had created... You can't tell anymore, can you??!!

This cake is chock full of moistness... it's rich and dense despite the fact that I had lightened it up some...

Again my little fingers get in the way...
it's hard to shoot a slice of cake when someone keeps nibbling away at it!

I had a bowl of cherries in the fridge. The kids are all gone and they are on the verge of being overripe. Some of them already are. But they are all bursting with flavor and I will never get to the bottom of this bowl. My kids are funny about fruit and the minute it becomes anything less than firm the stuff won't pass their lips. And well, I hate to waste anything so I usually toss my fruit into the freezer for future smoothies, or I toss 'em into a mixing bowl with some butter, sugar, eggs, flower... You get the picture!


And I had a craving for a good cherry pound cake. I searched the web and I found nothing I liked... nothing appealed to me. I remembered this fantabulous Eggnog Pound Cake that I have featured here on my blog and decided to use that as the basis for this recipe. But I felt the need to lighten things up a tad, what with it being summer and all... 


And so I tinkered and toyed, fiddled and faddled and WOWZA... did I ever do good. Now I have to let you in on a little secret. I replaced some of the fat with a cup of cottage cheese. Yes, cottage cheese! Now, don't wrinkle your noses at me. It works. It works well. Trust me here. 
Seriously, this one is to go down in the Pound Cake Hall of Fame. Seriously this is like a Celebration Cake... bring it to a party... butter up your new boss... Trying to score some serious points with the cute brown-haired boy in the cubicle next to yours? Bake his this and he will ask you to marry him right there on the spot! This cake is guaranteed to take you places... trust me!


Equipment
stand mixer with paddle attachment (or hand mixer and large bowl)
12-cup Bundt pan, or tube pan 

Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter
3 cups (525 g) granulated sugar
4 eggs
3 cups (339 g) flour
1 tbs vanilla extract
1 cup of low-fat cottage cheese
2 cups of cherries, pitted and cut into small pieces Powdered sugar for sprinkling, optional

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 325° F/165° C.
2. Cut butter into chunks and cream. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs one at a time then vanilla.
3. Blend well and add the flour. 
4. Stir in the cottage cheese, start on low and then high to break up the curds.
5. Carefully fold in the cherries, mix slowly and thoroughly 
5. Pour into prepared pan and place in the preheated oven. Bake for 90 minutes.
6. Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. Also good with a scoop of ice cream on the side.

Quick Sour Cream Pound Cake with Cinnamon Swirl

A friend is coming over this morning to help me organize some of our auction goodies for the school. The bigger items and the big ticket items are pretty much all taken care of. But we have some smaller baskets such as Father's Day, Father/Son Day Out, Kid's Day Out, Mother's Day, Mother/Daughter Day as well as some restaurant and food baskets to put together. Most of the donations are in but new ones arrive daily. It astounds me how generous people can be in this economy. Their generosity is truly appreciated and is neither going unnoticed or taken lightly. My friend Mary Jean was instrumental in the acquisitions area of the school's auction. She's coming over shortly with a few more items. And then we will get to work. But I cannot work on an empty stomach. I cannot have someone at the house (expected) without offering a beverage and a bite to eat. So we'll have some lovely warm, frothy cappuccinos (perfect on this cool and drizzly day) with my warm cake.

I cheated. I was short on time so I used a boxed cake mix, Duncan Hines Yellow to be precise. What I did took mere minutes to do and made the cake seem a bit richer than a regular yellow cake. The sour cream also cut down the sweetness a bit making this a lovely accompaniment to a warm cup or tea or coffee.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Ingredients:

1 package Duncan Hines yellow cake mix
1 cup of sour cream (I always use the lighter versions)

1/3 cup of canola oil
4 eggs

1 tbs cinnamon
3 tbs sugar

Combine all ingredients except for the sugar and the cinnamon and mix well.

In a small bowl mix together the cinnamon and the sugar.

Pour half of cake mixture in a well greased oaf pan then spread half the cinnamon mixture. Add the remaining cake batter and the remaining cinnamon mixture.

Bake in oven for 1 hour.

Cool for about 10 minutes, remove from loaf pan and cool another 5 minutes or so before slicing.