Strawberry Pound Cake Recipe.. Print this shit.

Okay boys and girls. Here is your basic recipe. Now, you'll notice that this strawberry pound cake doesn't have actually strawberries in it. You know why? Because, at my house, I had butter, flour, salt, sugar, eggs, cream, and strawberry extract. Do you know what I didn't have? Strawberries. Is this a problem? Fuck no.

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar
7 large eggs, at room temperature 30 minutes
2 tablespoons of Strawberry Extract
1 cup heavy cream

Put oven rack in middle position, but do not preheat oven. We're going to bake this bitch cold. Or in the words of Bill O'Reilly, we're going to do it LIVE. (NB: The do it live bit is at the end. But it's worth wasting 90 seconds of your life to watch O'Reilly completely lose it.)



Generously butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess flour. This is the way you SHOULD do it. I on the other hand normally just spray my pans and put down some parchment paper in the bottom. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Unless you forget the fucking parchment paper (see previous post)

Sift together sifted flour (3 cups) and salt into a bowl. Repeat sifting into another bowl (flour will have been sifted 3 times total). Yeah, I admit, I skip this step. I've got a 4 cup pyrex measure and I put my flour in and throw the salt on top. I can't guarantee that this makes a better or worse cake. I can say it's a whole fucking lot easier, AND alot quicker. And guess what... when people are eating my cake, they don't ask me if I fucking sifted the flour or not.


Beat together butter (2 sticks) and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment or 6 to 8 minutes with a handheld mixer. Trust me, if you are going to be doing alot of baking, invest in a g-damned stand mixer. You'll give yourself fucking carpal tunnel and strip the gears in a wal-mart hand mixer. Oh, and if you don't have any kind of mixer, go home and put yourself to bed. I don't know anyone that makes homemade cakes with a fucking wooden spoon anymore. It's the 21st century and if Google can show me a picture of my dog taking a crap on Google Earth, then you can pony up 10 bucks for a cheap ass hand mixer. Or grow a pair and take your ass to Bed Bath and Beyond and buy yourself a fucking Kitchen-Aid. News Flash folk, the Beyond is their special way of saying they've got kitchen shit.

Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in extract. DO NOT add all of the eggs at once. Why? Because I fucking said so.

Reduce speed to low and add half of flour, then all of cream, then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down side of bowl, then beat at medium-high speed 5 minutes. Batter will become creamier and satiny. Now, pour (or spoon. I don't give a fuck. You can scoop it out with your hands if you need to) the batter into 3 8" pans. Last night, I decided to pour it into two 8" pans. Guess what I got?

Muffin Top City



Spoon batter into pan and rap pan against work surface once or twice to eliminate air bubbles. Place pan in (cold) oven and turn oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. (that's 60-75 minutes if you can't do math and use a digital timer. Assholes.)

So, I made the mistake of not using three pans, and just used two. This is what those bitches turned out like.



Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around inner and outer edges of cake, then invert rack over pan and invert cake onto rack to cool completely. If you use your parchment paper and 3 pans, you're gonna make three fucking layers that are going to torte and stack beautifully and make a cake roughly seven feet tall. If you did like me and forgot your fucking protection and tried to cram 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag, you're going to need to cut the tops off and manage broken layers. But buck up kiddos, we're gonna run with this shit. Tonight we're going to make our strawberry buttercream.

Ciao,

CB