vanilla pound cake

Two years ago I bought 2 dozen vanilla beans for a great price. They were my precious babies so I used them oh so sparingly. The vanilla beans won't be a problem to move and I intend on bringing them with me but I am less stingy about using them now.


I used a Tahitian bean for its floral notes in homemade marshmallows over the Christmas holiday.

This week, I used the creamy Bourbon bean for a simple vanilla pound cake.

Pound cake is one of those things that almost requires no recipe. Like the name suggests, one pound of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, or in my case 8 ounces, and a splash of vanilla, pinch of salt, dash of baking powder.



The crunchy corners on the end pieces are my favorite, just like corner brownie pieces.

simple vanilla pound cake
8 ounces all purpose flour (approximately 1 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
8 ounces unsalted butter at room temperature
8 ounces granulated sugar (approximately 1 1/4 cup)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract or one vanilla bean split lengthwise and scraped
8 ounces or 4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Butter and flour or line with parchment a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Set aside. 

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together until no lumps remain. Set aside.

Beat butter until smooth and creamy, approximately 2 minutes. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy, approximately 5 minutes.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs and beat briefly until eggs are scrambled. Drizzle 1/4 cup of the beaten eggs into the butter mixture and continue beating the butter until the eggs are completely incorporated. Scrape the bottom of the bowl. Repeat with another 1/4 cup of egg and continue until all the eggs have been beaten into the butter, scraping the bowl between each addition.

Sift the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix on the lowest setting until almost no streaks or clumps of flour remain.

Finish the batter by folding with a rubber spatula to get rid of any last streaks or lumps.

Scrape the batter into a prepared pan.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 70 to 80 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Carrot Cake with Pineapple and Coconut and Brown Butter Rum Cream Cheese Frosting

I had some flopppy carrots and a half bar of cream cheese that needed to be used up so the obvious choice was a carrot cake. My original idea was to spice things up by adding currants instead of the traditional raisins because I hate raisins. But Trader Joes, my go-to source for quirky ingredients, no longer carries currants and I wasn’t about to go to Whole Paycheck and drop $10 on some fancy heritage currants from the South of France. Instead I got the next best thing, pineapple. I’ve actually never purchased a can of pineapple before or any canned fruit for that matter, so the first step was locating the canned fruit aisle in grocery store, an aisle I avoid like the plague. Who knew there were so many ways you could cut and can a pineapple—crushed, tidbits, chunks, rings? Many recipes call for crushed but that stuff looked a little too beaten up for my tastes, whereas the chunks were way too big. I wanted discernible pieces of pineapple in my cake so the tidbits were perfect. After adding pineapple, the logical next step is to add coconut (another leftover ingredient that needed using up) and of course you can't have pineapple and coconut without some rum.






After 2 trips to the grocery store and a few hours later, I was standing in my kitchen frosting a cake at nearly midnight and realized my quest to use up 3 leftover ingredients had yielded an enormous 2 layer cake probably weighing close to 5 pounds. Funny how things turn out sometimes. It was way too much cake for Steven and me, but we had plenty of people to share it with. I have yet to meet someone that does not like cake, especially homemade cake. Not to mention, cake for breakfast is a truly glorious thing.

If you can’t find the tidbits, crushed is a good substitute or if you really want to go the extra mile you can cut up the pineapple chunks into smaller pieces. A food processor would come in handy for shredding the carrots but grating by hand is not impossible. Next time I might try to bump up the carrot content to a full 1 pound.

Carrot Cake with Pineapple and Coconut
3/4 pound carrots, peeled and finely grated
8 oz. can pineapple tidbits or crushed, drained
2 C (8.8 oz.) unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp clove or allspice
1/2 C brown sugar
3/4 C granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 C (4 oz.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 C canola or vegetable oil

Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe follows
Approximately 1 C toasted, shredded and sweetened coconut to decorate the outside, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 2 8 inch cake pans. A 9 inch cake pan would also work but baking time will be shorter.

Add the drained pineapple to the shredded carrots and set aside.

In a blender, add the 4 eggs, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Blend on a low speed for a minute. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and oil and blend for 4 more minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. After the liquid mixture has finished blending, pour the blender contents into the dry ingredients, add the grated carrots and pineapple, and gently fold the batter with a rubber spatula until no streaks of flour or chunks of carrots remain.

Pour the batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake at 350 for 30 – 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Start checking the cake after 25 minutes.


The completed cake before going into the fridge. Breakfast the next day.

This frosting is absolutely magnificent. Like pineapple and coconut, browned butter and rum is one of those combinations that just works. This is a great all purpose frosting and can be used for other cakes, not just carrot cake. After browning the butter, the milk solids can be strained out for a clean looking frosting but I like the freckled look. The specks of milk solids also camouflages any cake crumbs that falls into the frosting, something I appreciated as I was frosting a cake in a sleep deprived state at 11pm.


Brown Butter Rum Cream Cheese Frosting
Enough to fill and frost an 8 inch 2 layer cake, but easily doubled
4 oz. cream cheese
4 oz. or 1 stick unsalted butter
2 1/2 – 3 C powdered sugar, sifted
2 - 3 Tbsp dark rum

Have a heat proof bowl resting in an ice bath ready.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter medium low heat. Cook the butter slowly and stir occasionally. First it will look like melted butter, then it will start to bubble and sizzle, and after a while it will start to clear and the milk solids will start to separate out of the fat. Slowly the solids will turn golden and then a light golden brown and the butter will smell nutty and caramely. When this happens, take the off heat and pour it into the bowl in the ice bath to cool it down quickly. If you let it sit, it solids will continue to cook and may burn.

Cool the butter to room temperature. Meanwhile, take the cream cheese out and bring it to room temperature.

After the butter has cooled, beat the cream cheese and 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and add another cup of powdered sugar. Add more sugar according to your tastes. I added 3 cups of powdered sugar total and the frosting was the tiniest bit grainy at that point but it wasn’t a deal breaker. Next time I'll stop with 2 1/2 cups. Slowly drizzle in rum to your tastes, starting with 1 tablespoon. I like my frostings on the boozy side but too much liquor and the frosting will be too runny. A good rule of thumb is 1 tablespoon of liquor for every cup of powdered sugar you add. Continue beating the frosting until it is fluffy and pillowy. It will have a consistency similar to whipped cream but have more structure.

I Catered a Wedding Part 2: Wedding Cupcakes

Tahitian Vanilla Cake with Raspberry Coulis and Matcha Green Tea Frosting

Most of the wedding food was tested repeatedly but none as extensively as the wedding cakes. Even if the food was mediocre, I wanted E.’s cakes to be perfect. In between studying and midterms, I tweaked and adjusted the cake recipes all quarter long. I stopped baking everything else and focused solely on the cake for 2 months. I’ve never spent this long developing and testing a recipe. All that work was worth it because the cupcakes are some of the best things I’ve ever baked.

The Planning
When E. and I first started planning many months ago, we quickly settled on cupcakes instead of a traditional tiered wedding cake. Cupcakes are very trendy right now but we chose them for more practical purposes. A tiered cake would take days to put together and with me doing all of the food, it just wasn’t a feasible option. Cupcakes are also great for quality control. I can taste the cupcakes after baking to make sure it turned out okay and no one will be any the wiser. It would be painfully obvious if a chunk was missing from a large wedding cake.

For variety, we would have both yellow and chocolate flavors. E. loves green tea so that had to be worked in somehow. In addition to frosting the cupcakes would also have a filling, just like a layer cake, because I wanted them to have a little extra something. After all, they're for a wedding!

At first, we planned to make 2 dozen of each flavor but then we upped the number to 3 dozen each in case guests wanted to try both flavors.

Flavor Development & Recipe Testing
I originally planned to make a green tea buttercream but buttercream can be very temperamental. The last thing I wanted was buttercream breaking the night before the wedding, the frosting melting the day of, or hard and dense frosting if the cake was served too chilled. For simplicity sake I went with a cream cheese frosting because it’s easier to make and very stable.

I paired the green tea frosting with the yellow cake and first tried lemon curd as the filling, but in the end, raspberry coulis complemented the tea even better. The yellow, red, and green colors made it the perfect Springtime cupcake. Originally, I planned to make an almond buttermilk cake, but the almond and buttermilk flavors were lost under the raspberry and green tea flavors. I nixed that idea and decided to go with the classic vanilla. Instead of using extract, I used a Tahitian vanilla beans for a rich floral flavor to complement the fruit filling and grassy notes of the matcha.


I won't be writing about E.'s chocolate cupcake because I'd like to keep that recipe just for her. Out of all the wedding food, I spent the longest time working on this one.

Baking the Cakes
It was Friday morning, the day before the wedding, and I was still working on the yellow cake. My last attempt making a yellow cake led to my desperate cry for help on this blog. I want to give a really a big thank you for everyone who left suggestions. I told E. about my problems and she told me to just follow a recipe in a cookbook. If I was a sensible person I would have taken her advice and stuck to a recipe. But I've confessed before about how I can never follow a recipe. Less than 24 hours before the wedding, it still holds true, I still can’t follow a recipe. I’m pretty sure I have a problem and I need professional help.

But in my defense, after looking at nearly 2 dozen recipes, none of them fit my specifications. Either they called for too many eggs or cake flour or looked too similar to the recipe I tried already. Call me stubborn or just plain stupid, but I went with my gut and decided to give my crazy experimentation another go.

Instead of creaming the butter and beating in eggs, I decided to go with a sponge cake technique, beating egg whites to soft peaks and beating the egg yolks and whole egg separately to ribbon stage. I also added in some baking powder because I wanted as much leavening as possible for the fluffiest cake using all purpose flour instead of cake flour. As the cakes baked in the oven, I crossed my fingers hoping that this recipe worked, because I was running seriously low on time. When the cakes came out, they looked fine, no gross deformities and no cave-ins. I broke one in half to inspect the crumb and was completely blown away at how they turned out. The cake was airy and fluffy and looked like a cake made with cake flour. It was moist and flavorful, and substantial enough to be a cupcake. I simply couldn't believe I could make a cake like that without cake flour. Not to be tooting my own horn or anything but this cake was perfect.

I baked the chocolate cupcakes in the afternoon and was so worried something disastrous would happen. Nothing had happened yet but something bad was bound to happen right? I'm always very pessimistic when it comes to baking for an important event.

I made the frostings later that night and finally finished filling and frosting the cakes at 12pm. Then I successfully managed to fit 6 dozen cupcakes in 2 very large hotel pans in our tiny fridge and hope the fridge didn't decide to give out overnight. If I had more time and more piping experience I would have decorated the cakes more elaborately but I did the best I could after 10 hours of food prep. I’m really glad I bought this cupcake decorating set because the 1M tip is essential for making the large frosting swirl.

The cakes were the pièce de résistance and I was immensely proud of them. The texture of the cakes were perfectly moist and fluffy and the flavors were well balanced and harmonious. I wished I snapped more pics of the process but I was totally pooped.

Thank you Veronica for showing me the gorgeous paper cupcake wrappers. The moment I saw those wrappers on your site I immediately forwarded the link to E. and we both fell in love with them. They completed the cupcakes and were the perfect finishing touch!

Yellow Cake
makes 14 – 16 cupcakes or 2 8 inch cakes

3.5 oz. sifted, all purpose flour
1 oz. cornstarch, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C melted butter
1/4 C vegetable or canola oil
3 large eggs
1/2 vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise and scraped or 1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C granulated sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp whole milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Add the sifted flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Whisk it together to evenly mix the ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the oil and melted butter.

Separate the eggs and put 2 egg whites into a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Make sure the bowl is very clean and dry because any fat or water in the bowl will interfere with the egg whites whipping properly. With a whisk attachment, whip the whites on medium high until they are foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue whisking. When the mixture starts gaining volume, slowing add 1/4 C of granulated sugar. Whisk until soft peaks form. If you lift up the whisk attachment and the mixture is still shiny and runny and looks like, keep whipping, you’re almost at the soft peaks stage. Scrape the whites into another clean bowl and set aside.

Add the 3 egg yolks, remaining egg white, 1/2 C of granulated sugar, and scraped vanilla bean seeds to the mixing bowl or stand mixer bowl. Whisk this mixture on medium high until the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Lift up the whisk and the mixture should fall back into the bowl like sheets of ribbon. The trail should be visible on the surface for 3 seconds before disappearing.

Sift in half of the flour mixture and carefully fold the flour into the egg mixture. When the flour is nearly almost all folded in, add the milk and half of the oil and butter mix, and continue folding. Make sure to bring up any oil that sinks to the bottom of the batter. Sift the remaining flour mixture into the batter, and continue folding, add the remaining oil and butter mixture and fold a few more times. Before the batter is completely mixed, scrape in 1/3 of the egg whites and continue folding. Then scrape in all of the egg whites and fold until no streaks remain.

Fill the cupcake tin 3/4 of the way full or divide the batter equally between 2 cake pans.

Bake at 350 for 20 – 22 minutes (may need a longer time for cake pans), or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed on.

Cool to room temperature before frosting.

I know others were also looking for a good yellow cake recipe. If you try this recipe let me know what you think!

Guinness Chocolate Cupcake with Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting

jump to the new blog and guinness cupcake recipe

Eggnog Caramel Cake

It’s been a while since I baked a cake, in fact, it’s been a while since I last baked anything. No wonder I’ve been so grumpy and irritable lately. Thanks goodness for this long weekend and the Daring Bakers for bringing me out of this baking slump. And what better way to do that than with lots of dangerous molten sugar. Good times indeed.


Our hosts this month are Dolores, Alex, and Jenny and the recipe they've selected comes from pastry chef extraordinaire Shuna Fish Lydon and it’s her signature caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting. Sugar coma here I come.

By the time I started my cake, many if not most DBs had already finished and posted their take on the caramel cake, which is how I stumbled on Hannah’s beautiful caramel cake roulade. I hate frosting cakes (I'm too OCD in trying to make the frosting perfect) so I thought this was the perfect stress-free way putting together the cake and *cough* shamelessly copied Hannah.

I think my caramel syrup ended up being a little too dark (this is what happens when you take your eye off caramel for one second) but *shrug* its okay, it’ll just have more developed flavors and um, smoky undertones right? Instead of adding water to the caramelized sugar, I added orange juice, which gave it a really unique taste. I also used eggnog instead of milk in the cake batter and 1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg. The batter looked a little on the thick side so I added more eggnog, which was not the best move because it screwed with the ratios and made the cake kinda gummy. The eggnog flavor also overpowered the caramel notes in the cake. Next time, if I wanted an eggnog cake, I’ll just skip the caramel syrup and if I want a caramel cake then I won’t add any competing flavors. The frosting was mindblowingly delicious, I would have eaten it by the spoonful but I kept telling myself I would just be eating butter and sugar... a little gross when you think about it. Even though the cake turned out gummy and it isn't the prettiest caramel cake on the block, it was still pretty darn tasty. However, I did find the cake to be on the sweet side even after I trimmed down the sugar. This recipe is definitely a keeper and is something I’ll tinker with some more.

I was lazy and skipped making the spun sugar decorations and caramel candies. Instead I just brushed the cake with some leftover caramel syrup.

Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting
By Shuna Fish Lydon - http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/

Caramel Cake
10 Tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 C granulated sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/3 C Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 C milk, at room temperature (in my case eggnog and 1/4 tsp nutmeg)

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

Caramel Syrup
2 C sugar
1/2 C water
1 C water (for "stopping" the caramelization process – I used orange juice)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

Caramelized Butter Frosting
12 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted (I cut it down to 2 – 3 C)
4-6 Tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
2-4 Tbsp caramel syrup (I used 4)
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

When I first envisioned this cake, I pictured the red blood orange juice mixing with the yellow eggs creating a cake with a golden orange crumb. Then when I cut open my blood orange, I was shocked to see it had a dark purple, nearly black flesh! It was a little scary looking! (After some Wiki research, I think I may have had a Moro blood orange.) Anyway, I soldiered on. I poured out my olive oil and realized that it was green. Now red + yellow = orange, but purple + green + yellow = ... ehh... not to be overly dramatic or anything but the grayish green-brown batter looked pretty darn vile. Looks aren't everything right? At least it still smelled nice with the addition of the orange zest and smelled even better after it came out of the oven. The cracked brown exterior was really lovely and even though the interior wasn't the color I was hoping for, it was really delicious. Who knew olive oil would be so good in a cake! The olive oil made the cake so moist, tender, and heart healthy too! :) I'm sure it would look much better if you use an olive oil that was more on the yellow side and a blood orange that's more red than purple.

Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
Adapted from Pure Desserts by Alice Medrich

2 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
3/4 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp orange zest
3 eggs
1/2 C fruity olive oil
2/3 C orange juice (blood orange, cara cara navel, or you can even substitute ruby red grapefruit juice)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper or butter and flour the pan.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl rub the sugar together with the orange zest to release the fragrant oils.

In a blender add the eggs and orange sugar. Blend until it is light yellow and thick, then slowly drizzle in the olive oil as if you were making a mayonnaise. Then blend in the orange juice. Pour this liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and gently fold the batter together until no streaks of flour remain.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350 deg F until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 50 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven and cool on a metal rack for 10 minutes then remove from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.