Cream Cheese Pound Cake Southern Living November 2001 Yield 1 (10-inch) cake Ingredients 1 1/2 cups butter, softened at room temp 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened at room temp 3 cups sugar 6 large eggs 3 cups all-purpose flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon vanilla extract Preparation Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy (do not over beat); gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until combined. Crack eggs into a bowl first before adding to the mixture to make sure you avoid shells in the cake mix. Sift 3 cups of flour. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla from the huge 1 liter Mexican vanilla bottle my mother in law shared with me. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch Bundt pan. Smooth the top of the cake or bottom of the cake (depending how you look at it) with a spatula to even it out. Bake at 300° for 1 hour and 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan, and let cool completely on wire rack.

ricky, the grapefruit sounds interesting and also doable. lascatx, the Sprite is such a "bland" taste, as soft drinks go, that it doesn't add any flavor. I think it's more the carbonation, like using club soda in batter for onion rings or the beer in beer bread. It may take the place of leavening, as the recipe has no baking powder or baking soda, no cream of tartar, just the beating of eggs/butter/sugar for loft. The carbonation might help that with no noticeable flavor. It's definitely pound cake, though, with 5 eggs, 3/4 pound of butter, 3 cups of sugar. It makes quite a large cake, I use my biggest bundt pan and it fills it up during baking. I think it's actually kind of plain, the only definable flavor being the vanilla extract, which is why it's good for things like strawberry shortcake. Mother likes plain cake, with no frosting, so she likes this one, although she's not adverse to adding rhubarb compote as a topping, or fresh strawberries or peaches. It's plenty sweet so I think adding club soda or tonic would probably do the work of the 3/4 cup of Sprite that is called for in this recipe. Annie

It depends on how you define "pound cake". Traditional quatre quarts (four quarters) pound cake has equal weights of flour, sugar, eggs and butter. Flavorings can be added, like a spoon of vanilla or orange, or even mixed in little bits and pieces, but it's meant to be plain and fairly dense. You do need to beat it hard to whip air in, and can also separate the eggs to whip the whites with a pinch of the sugar, then fold in the mix of the other parts carefully, for a lighter cake. The only liquid of any quantity in this kind of pound cake comes from the eggs. In some parts of the USA, however, "pound cake" refers to what books usually call "butter cakes", which are plain ol' cakes of the kind one makes for frosted birthday cakes. Those have both eggs and baking powder, but have different proportions. For myself, I prefer to talk about egg rising cakes (which includes sponge and angel) vs. baking powder cakes, because it's less confusing for me. Baking powder cakes often have milk in them, and fewer eggs, and have all kinds of alternative liquids and fats, ranging for oil to yoghurt to applesauce. Because of the chemical leavener, heavier things can be incorporated.

Oh my....I need to make that and then do a double workout! :). Thanks for sharing!