As you know, I do a lot of baking. I bake for the Coffee Hour at Girlfriend’s school each week. I have a monthly cake commitment for a couple of folks who won monthly baking from me at an auction. I bake for friends. And, of course, I bake for our family and for this blog. And I love it. Baking gives me more pleasure than I can describe.
But the thing that makes me the most happy about baking is the opportunity to share the results with people. I am always thrilled to have an occasion to bake. Parties, potlucks, gatherings, dinners, coffee hours, whatever–I will bake for it. If I am part of a group and we have a potluck and someone divides the list alphabetically and my name falls into the group that’s supposed to bring salads–I am completely bereft. Of course, I usually make a salad AND a baked good.
This past week I had many occasions to bake. There was a housewarming party, Coffee Hour, baking for a family going through a tough time, and, of course, baking for our house. You never know when a friend will drop by for tea.
On weeks like this, I turn to cream cheese pound cake. Pound cake is a workhorse. It’s yummy, versatile, everyone likes it, and it keeps well. You can use it for many occasions. You can serve it plain with tea, or drizzled with melted chocolate, slathered in jam, or topped with whipped cream to dress it up. And, it freezes well. And, everyone loves it. At coffee hour it went pretty quickly and people asked for more. At the housewarming party everyone asked for the recipe. Yesterday, I checked in on Twitter and found a group of my pals talking about my pound cake and how yummy it is. They all asked for the recipe. I’m serious–this recipe is a hit. You can’t go wrong with it.
I adapted the following recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cream Cheese Pound Cake. I’ve been using my adaptation of the recipe for years and it’s a hit every time. It makes two loaves–which is really helpful when you have more than one event to bake for in a short amount of time. Or, you can use one immediately and freeze one for later. And, you can add chocolate chips to the recipe for an extra bit of decadence.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake, Gluten-Free
-adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes 2 9″x5″ loaves
Special equipment needed:
-a stand mixer is very helpful, but a hand mixer will do
-2 9″x5″ loaf pans
Ingredients
3 cups Jeanne’s Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour Mix
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
6 large or extra large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
extra butter–melted–and tapioca flour for pans
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
-grease and flour 2 loaf pans with extra butter and tapioca flour
-in a medium bowl, mix flour and salt, set aside
-in the bowl of stand mixer (or a large bowl if using a hand mixer), beat butter until it’s light and fluffy–at least 3 minutes.
-add cream cheese, beat a couple minutes more
-add sugar, beat for 3 minutes more
-add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition
-with mixer on low speed, beat in vanilla extract
-with mixer on low, add dry ingredients until just incorporated
-if using optional chocolate chips, mix them in by hand here
-spoon dough in equal amounts into the 2 prepared loaf pans
-thump each pan on the counter to release any trapped air bubbles
-bake at 350 degrees F for 65-75 minutes (until tops are browned and tester comes out clean)
-remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes in pan
-turn out cakes onto a wire rack and cool completely
-store at room temperature wrapped in aluminum foil for 4-5 days
-you may freeze the cakes
Enjoy!
Note: If you use a different gluten-free flour mix, alter the amount of or eliminate the xanthan gum or use a different gluten-replacer, use dairy-free or egg-free substitutes, or change any other ingredients in this recipe, your results may not match my results.
Hi 🙂 My fiancee and I have out baker all picked out for our wedding with deposits paid and all… THEN I find out I have a gluten sensitivity. I don’t even want to ask the baker if they can make their “butter cheese” cake gluten free because 1} the guy is ALL about using the best flour and 2} I don’t want to worry about cross contamination. Do you think this would be okay to bake in a regular round cake pan and would be okay frosted? I know it’s heavy and so what the on from the baker. I’m just going to make my own little cake so I don’t have to worry about getting ill on my wedding night! Thanks for a response in advance!
Jen: Yes, I think this would be fine in a round pan–but I highly recommend that you do at least one test run before your wedding to make sure you have all of the details down. Also, I think it might be worth your while to at least ask the baker if he would be up for making a gluten-free wedding cake. In this day and age, it is more and more common for bakers to get this request–and you might be surprised at his answer. It seems kind of a shame that you will not even be able to eat your own wedding cake. If he says “no” or makes a fuss, then maybe make your wedding cake the “main” cake that you and your husband eat and take photos with, and have the cake he makes for the crowd. Also, check out my Chocolate Chip Pound Cake recipe–I have made that many times as a layer cake and it comes out fabulous every time (everyone loves it!). It has cream cheese and chocolate chips–although you could easily omit the chocolate chips. I often make it in a 10″ square pan. I use 1 recipe per pan (I only have 1-10″ pan, so I make the recipe twice to get two layers)and then stack the cakes as a layer cake for big birthday parties. Works really, really well! A 10″ square pan bakes for 45 minutes at 350 degrees F. Tip: a 10″ square layer cake will give you in the neighborhood of 50 wedding cake servings…:) Happy Wedding!!
To follow up from the above comment, the cake tasted wonderful. Yay! Lightly sweet and good lemon flavor. It was great with sliced strawberries, although I noticed it dried out very quickly, like many GF baked goods, so one really needs to keep it wrapped as soon as it has cooled. I made it again in loaves, as I was so pleased with it. Thanks so much!
I noticed you use unsalted butter in some of your cake-type recipes. Why unsalted? And would salted butter change the flavor/consistency too drastically? Can I use salted butter and omit the salt from the recipe?
Wendy: I use unsalted butter because: 1) I’m lazy and only want to buy one kind of butter :); and 2) I like to measure out the salt to taste. So, yes–go ahead and use salted butter and just reduce the amount of salt a bit.
I love me some poundcake as well, and as a new GF girl this was my first foray into GF cakes, although I’ve been making muffins and flaxseed focaccia bread. I also love lemon, so I confess I messed with your recipe, adding the 2 tsp vanilla and 3 TBS lemon zest (Meyer, off my little tree 🙂 from the Lemon Sourcream Poundcake to this. I’m also carb sensitive, so I dropped the sugar to 2.25 cups to help a leetle bit in that direction, and made it in my black, non-stick Bundt pan (12 C) instead of loaves, as this is my birthday cake and I’m keeping it, dangit. 😛 Everything fit perfectly, no drips on the jellyroll pan I put underneath as a precaution. Baked for 65 minutes, tester came out clean and the top and sides are a lovely golden color. The crumbs off the pan were delicious, and the cake is cooling as I type. Thanks so much for your recipe(s)!
Oh, and 2 tsp salt? Really?!? I cut that down to 1/2 tsp. 🙂 I learn so much from you and your commenters, so I figured I’d contribute to the pool of experimental knowledge. I’ll post back after I’ve had a slice.
Kelly: Yay! Thanks for letting me know about your adaptions and experiments with the recipes! So fun!
Can I substitute marscapone cheese for the cream cheese in this pound cake? Also can I use it with a Bundt cake pan? Do I still make two cakes?
Thank you!
Kalliope
Kalliope: I think it would be fine to substitute marscapone cheese in this. And if you make a bundt cake, I would make one–in a 9-10 cup bundt cake pan.
Funny! In my Google Reader I have a post about cream cheese- truffle brownie cookies, and when I click on it, it brings me to this post of a completely different recipe! Both recipes look wonderful though.
Can I go ahead and try making the cookies, or is that post actually not ready to post yet and needs some changes?