Birthday Bundt for the family

April is now gone, but I can’t help but remember that month especially fondly this year. You see, I always have two birthdays to deal with in April (fiancé and daughter) – and one after the other to boot (17^th and 18^th respectively).

I had planned long before to make them both a birthday cake, since buying one was out of the question, especially with the prices of everything going up and up in the bakeries these days. Plus, I still had a couple of cake pans that I hadn’t yet christened. 

The springform one was purchased with the intention to experiment with cheesecakes, only to realise that Mr Man was not a cheesecake lover – I won’t say what he thinks it tastes like on this forum, lol! The second pan (seen above), which I duly christened, was a bundt pan. My next problem was finding a cake recipe they both would love. Both are rather picky in the cake department, you see. He likes fruitcakes. She doesn’t. I can make a mean chocolate cake, but we definitely wanted something different...

So, I decided to let my fingers do the searching (online) and I found the perfect solution (original recipe link: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/cream-cheese-pound-cake-iii/Detail.aspx), which I gave my own festive birthday treatment. Most Trinidadians will agree that its execution is a really nice throwback, as you’ll soon see!

First ingredients were 8 ounces of room temperature cream cheese and 1 and ½ blocks of Blue Band Butter, also at room temperature.

Both were mixed together until silky smooth.

In went 2 1/2 cups white sugar (recipe said 3 but I cut back), beaten in gradually, then I added 5 eggs (recipe said 6, but I cut back). I beat them in 2 at a time, followed by the last egg.

Folded in 3 cups of sifted flour using a metal spoon, followed by 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence. I didn’t realise the mixture would increase this much, or I would have used my giant mixing bowl, but, the first stage of the cake batter was complete. Now for the fun part…

I divided the batter into four, and in two bowls, I placed a teaspoon or so each of red and yellow food colouring.

So this…

became this… I think you can see where I’m going with this one.

So I heavily (cooking) sprayed and floured up the bundt pan.

Put in the first layer of plain batter.

Then dollops of red batter…

Followed by yellow...

Continuing with all 3 colours until all were used up and it looked like this. But wait... there's more!

Took my wooden skewer and started swirling everything… 

*stoner voice* Whooooa... trippy!

Into the oven it went at 350 degrees F to bake for 1 hour, 20 minutes (or 30 minutes if you think it needs it). Another point, this cake didn’t need to go in a preheated oven.

Here it is after 1 hour. The middle was still soft, so I let it go for another 20 minutes. And I’m still amazed how the cake rose without needing baking powder.

Here’s the bundt cake, all done. I forgot to snap a photo of it before I turned it out the pan. What happened was a huge crack appeared around the hole and part of that batter wasn’t fully baked. So, I turned the oven off and let it sit in the pan for an extra 15 minutes to ‘soak’ up some extra heat. After that, it passed the skewer test (came out clean).

And check out those colours!

To glaze or not to glaze? Okay, I gave in. A simple mix of icing sugar and some fresh squeezed orange juice was drizzled on.

A quick cut for the birthday people, lol… check the lovely marbled effect inside! 

They just LOVED IT!

 Here are my tweaks to the original recipe (including the name):

"Cream cheese (Marbled) Pound cake in a Bundt pan"

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese (Let it get to room temperature.)
• 1 1/2 cups butter (or 1 ½ blocks of Blue band butter.)
• 3 cups white sugar (I used 2 ½ cups.)
• 6 eggs (I used 5 eggs.)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Used vanilla essence.)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (I upped the heat to 350 degrees F) then grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan.   (I skipped the preheating and baked it at 350 degrees F instead.)
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy.
3. Add eggs two at a time, beating well with each addition. Add the flour all at once and mix in. Add vanilla.
4. Pour into a 10 inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees F (160 degrees C) for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check for doneness at 1 hour. (If it’s still soft in the middle after an hour, let it go for 20 to 30 minutes more. If it’s still not cooked after that, turn the oven off and let it sit there for a further 10 to 15 minutes.) A toothpick (use a skewer) inserted into center of cake will come out clean.

And there you have it. This "Cream cheese (Marbled) Pound cake in a Bundt pan" will now be included in my ‘go to’ file. We all loved this cake. The texture was nice and firm and nothing went flying when you cut into it. As for the swirls, they certainly brought back memories of the traditional pink, yellow and brown marble cakes we’d buy in the bakery back in the day.  

So, with cake memories dancing on my brain, I shall now bid you adieu. Take care of yourselves my dears, and like I always say, doh forget to mind de pot! :-)