Lost Times- Cream Cheese Pound Cake

It's been a long time. I had no idea that so many months had past since I last posted. I have started to post about various meals and events and sights and sounds I have experienced since we last met but I didn't. So much has happened since April. Things like summer and camp and Haiti and the beach and football and baseball and life. I sat down before to share some of my journal from my trip to Haiti because I know many of you out there prayed me through that journey, but my heart becomes so heavy as I reread about so many of the gut wrenching experiences I had there. Soon.
One of the fun highlights of our summer was watching one of our dear friends walk down the aisle to his bride. We have been with them through their courting and have be so blessed by their friendship. I was asked to create a couple of creations for their big day, one being a nurse themed cake for the rehearsal dinner and one being the groom's cake. We had them over one night to think about flavors and designs and settled on a half chocolate, half cream cheese pound cake, all filled with vanilla buttercream and cookie dough....in the shape of the Millenium Falcon. I try to know as little as possible about Star Wars since I live with the Jedi and Darth "Mader" on a daily basis and know first hand how it feels to be smacked upside the head by a "life saber". I knew the pressure was on for this because the Salesman talked about it constantly how it better look good. Stress. I researched and researched and the only thing I knew for certain going into it was that it would taste heavenly. This cream cheese pound cake recipe was given to me when I was in college. I was part of a Wednesday night house church with my best friend and we tended to have pot lucks quite a bit. We knew that our hosts would always have totally bizarre foods so we each did our best to bring our finest dishes to know that we wouldn't leave hungry at the end of the night. One of the girls brought this recipe and one other and the copy I have that she gave me those 13 years ago is so worn and yellow you can hardly read the writing. This is my go to recipe for brides when they want a vanilla cake with the volume turned up. This is delicious with a gooey caramel glaze and sugared pecans, fresh berries and cream, warm chocolate sauce or just a dusting of powdered sugar. I use this recipe in a bundt pan, cupcakes and cake. I love the crunchy crust it gets and the buttery goodness of it. I have made this probably 300 times and it never fails.
As stated previously, always use room temperature ingredients when baking. This doesn't rise up super high so fill cupcake liners a bit fuller then you normally would. It has been known to stick to the pan a time or two so be sure you use a spray with flour added or if cooking in 8-9" round pans line the pan with parchment for easy release. You can easily double it. Be sure you eyeball it while in the oven so you don't burn the edges too much. You will need to do a toothpick test on this for done-ness to make sure you pull it out as soon as it is set.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

1 Pkg Duncan Hines Butter Cake
8 oz cream cheese softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 c boiling water
1/2 c cooking oil
2 Tbsp melted butter
3 large eggs

In the bowl of a heavy mixer, cream the cream cheese and sugar together until combined. Slowly add the water and oil and scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure it all melts together. Add the butter and eggs and mix just until combined. With the mixer on low, slowly add in the dry cake mix. It will look very lumpy, just be sure you scrape the sides and let the mixer run on medium for about 2 minutes.
Pour into prepared pan. For bundt, bake 45 minutes then text it every 5 until it a toothpick inserted comes out clean. For cupcakes, bake 12-15 minutes until spring back to the touch. For 2, 9" rounds bake 15-18 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.



Enjoy Y'all!