Chocolate Swirl Pound Cake

I recently had a birthday and made a deal with a friend for a simple exchange. “I give you cake, you sing me happy birthday”. If memory serves me right the birthday song was usually a given but leave it to me to have one of those rare occasions where I buy my song with cake.

Good thing is he is a simple guy whose palate appreciates a simple pound cake. Figured I was getting a pretty good deal here. I get to do what I enjoy most and out of it I finally get to hear those vocals I’ve heard for months now how amazing they are.

Lately I’ve been all about adding chocolate to my recipes. Which I think it’s safe to say chocolate is great in any dessert combo. Well at least according to my palate it is.

Try out this Chocolate Swirl Pound Cake and let me know if your's agrees!

Yield: 24 servings, 2 loaves

Prep: 1 hour
Bake: 300°F 1 hour 15 mins to 1 hour 30 mins (no preheating)
Cool: 1 hour and 10 mins

Chocolate Cake
(Using a few spoonfuls so there will definitely be leftover for some chocolate cupcakes)
1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
3/8 cups of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2teaspoon baking soda
3/8 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoons almond extract
3/4 cup milk
1/3 semi sweet mini chocolate chips (optional)

1. Let butter and eggs stand room temperature for 30 minutes.

2. In a large bowl beat butter on medium speed until smooth, about 30 to 35 seconds. Add sugar 1/4 cup at a time and scrape sides of bowl after each addition. Continue beating until light and fluffy, about a total of 5 minutes.

3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add in vanilla and almond extract, mix just until combined.

4. In a medium bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Alternate between flour mixture and milk as you add into butter mixture. Begin and end with the flour mixture. For each addition beat until well combined. Beat the batter until smooth, about 2 minutes. Fold in chocolate chips, cover bowl and set aside.

Pound Cake
2 8x4x2 inch loaf pans
3 eggs
½ cup cold butter
4 ounces of cold cream cheese
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1. Let eggs stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Grease and flour loaf pans and set aside.

2. Use paddle attachment to beat cold butter on low speed for 2 minutes. Occasionally switch to high speed for a few seconds to remove butter from paddle. Add cream cheese and continue beating on low for 3 minutes with occasional increase of speed. Beat until well combined and while still beating on low slowly add sugar. Add salt and continue beating mixture on low for 5-7 minutes. Be sure to scrape sides and bottom of bowl every couple of minutes

3. Add eggs, one at time, beating after each addition just until combined. Beat in vanilla extract. On low speed add about half of flour 1/4 cup at time and fold in remaining flour just until combined.

4. Pour batter into loaf pans halfway and then add about 6 tablespoons of chocolate cake randomly on each pound cake batter. Swirl butter knife through cake to lightly spread chocolate batter. Careful not to over do it and mix batters together. Add remaining pound cake batter to loaf pans. Gently shake pans and swirl butter knife through batter a few more times to release air pockets.

5. Place pans on center racks and then turn on oven to 300°F. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center of cake comes out clean.

6. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely before serving.

Sweet Flukes

When you look at the picture you can tell the that the chocolate cake sits very "unswirly-ish" on top of cake. Rather than adding chocolate batter to middle and swirling I spooned it on top. Hopefully when you guys try what I think to be the best way, your cake will have an actual nice swirl to it's center.

When I baked this cake I was as usual in such a rush. Prepping was going great and then I was short on sugar. As we all know sugar is pretty damn important so you can imagine how quickly my baking was brought to a halt. Feeling the stress kick in I wrapped that batter up, threw in the fridge and got some much needed rest.

Next day I came back reenergized and with plenty of sugar for my cakes and my family's coffee addictions. There was a little worry that letting the batter sit overnight would ruin the rise or taste. At this point, starting over was out of the question so I continued with it. A few hours later I had a cake that was just right and a guaranteed birthday song solo.