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Perfect Cream Cheese Pound Cake plus tips for getting a golden brown crust.
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Perfect Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Dense but light textured, tight crumb pound cake made with cream cheese
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Cream Cheese, Pound Cake
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Cooling Time 30 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 5 minutes
Servings 12 slices
Author Anna
Cost 5

Ingredients

  • 3 large eggs at room temperature
  • 1 ¾ teaspoons of vanilla extract and ¼ teaspoon almond extract
  • 6 ounce unsalted butter at room temperature, cut in chunks (170 grams)
  • 4 oz cream cheese, softened (114 grams)
  • 1 ½ cups granulated or superfine granulated sugar** (300 grams)
  • ½ teaspoon salt omit if using salted butter
  • 1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (180 grams)

Instructions

  • Make sure the oven rack is near the center, but do not preheat. This cake starts in a cold oven. You will bake it at 325 degrees F.
  • Grease an 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch light colored loaf pan with butter. Line with a strip of parchment, grease again and dust with flour. Alternatively, you can just use flour-added baking spray if you like.
  • In a liquid measuring cup, whisk the eggs and extracts and set aside.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attached, beat the butter and softened cream cheese for about five minutes on medium speed until light creamy. Scrape bowl occasionally. With the mixer running, add the sugar very slowly – this should take another 5 minutes. Add the salt and scrape bowl again.
  • Reduce mixer speed slightly and very gradually add the egg/extract mixture a few spoonfuls at a time. This process should take about 2 minutes. Once the eggs are added, continue beating for one minute.
  • Remove bowl from stand mixer and sift the flour about ½ cup at a time into the batter, stirring with a heavy duty scraper until well blended. Make sure all the flour is incorporated by scraping batter up from the bottom.
  • Put the batter in the pan, spread it evenly and bake (starting in the cold oven) for about 85 minutes at 325 F. Cake should form a dome and crack. Let it cool for about 20 to 30 minutes in the pan, then carefully loosen and remove from pan by inverting, peeling off parchment, and inverting again.
  • Let the cake cool completely before serving.

Notes

I make superfine sugar by putting granulated sugar in a food processor.