This cream cake is my new favorite, and one of the reasons I like it so much is that it doesn’t require an electric mixer. You’d think without a mixer the texture would be like a muffin or quick bread, but it’s not. This recipe gives you a high-rising nicely rounded loaf cake with a very tight, fine crumbed texture similar to a pound cake.
I’ve actually been a little obsessed with high-rising loaf cakes this week and have made this cream cake a number of times just to see how various add-ins would affect the cake. For the cake in the first picture I used about 1/2 cup chocolate chunks. Naturally, they sank.
Regular size chocolate chips tossed with flour also sank. However, mini chocolate chips stayed fairly evenly distributed throughout. The only problem was I used so many of them that the cake didn’t rise as high.
But that only bothered me. Everyone else liked the slightly shorter, denser, cake packed with chips.
This cake is just so fun and so pretty. I have a few ideas for flavor changes and will post them in the notes section if they work.
- 1 3/4 cups cake flour (200 grams or 7 ounces by weight)
- 1/2 teaspoon Rumford double acting baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar (260 grams), I use C&H Baker’s Sugar
- 4 large eggs (200 grams) at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or a combination of vanilla and almond
- 1/2 cup heavy cream, room temperature
- 5 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted gently and cooled to room temperature (80 grams)
- 2/3 cup miniature chocolate chips (I didn't toss the mini chips in flour)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour an 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pan. Line with a strip of parchment paper.
- BEFORE YOU START, MELT AND COOL BUTTER AND BRING ALL INGREDIENTS TO ROOM TEMP.
- Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add salt and whisk to ensure everything is fully blended. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs for 1 minute or until well blended.
- Sift a third of the flour mixture over the eggs and whisk until blended. Repeat twice, whisking another 1/3 of the flour mixture each time, until incorporated. Stir in the flavorings, cream and the COOLED, melted butter. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake on center rack for 60 minutes, or until the center of the cake crowns and cracks and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or better yet, until a meat thermometer registers between 205 and 210. Let cake cool in pan for about 20 minutes, loosening sides with a knife after about 10. Remove from pan and let cool for several hours.
- When cool, wrap tightly with foil or plastic wrap. Cake should keep for 3 or 4 days.
I would love to add toffee to this. DO you think browning the butter first would fare well? (Also love the cookbook collection in the back!!
Toffee is a great idea! I think the small toffee chips would work really well. I am kind of tired of brown butter these days and wouldn’t personally use it, but if you love it you could try it. Thanks for noticing my cookbook collection :). I should have tidied it up a bit, but I was focusing on trying to get a good picture and of course it was dusk so there wasn’t much light.
What a pretty loaf! Although I like chocolate chip cookies, I’m generally not fond of chocolate chips in cakes or breads — I’m wondering what flavor variations you’ve tried. I will try the toffee bits, finely chopped nuts or maybe some well-drained and finely chopped fruit (maraschino cherries come to mind).
Mary, I’ll keep adding updates to this post. The cake rises so much higher without the chocolate chips that it would be nice to jazz up the cake with flavor rather than add-ins.
By the way, for a really good blueberry bread, try this one at the link. I have re-made it through the years and have polished up the recipe somewhat. It’s really good.http://www.cookiemadness.net/2010/07/lemon-blueberry-loaf-cake/