{"id":336,"date":"2013-05-04T05:20:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitemporaryblog.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/04\/im-feeling-daring"},"modified":"2015-12-16T17:52:43","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T22:52:43","slug":"im-feeling-daring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangette.net\/2013\/05\/im-feeling-daring\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m feeling daring"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have finally learned how to use the espresso machine that Brandon chased down on eBay and gave me for Christmas in 2011! \u00a0The best part of this development, however, is not the double espresso that I can now enjoy each morning while sitting on the living room floor with June, reading Madeline<\/a><\/i>\u00a0or singing along (poorly, loudly) to our favorite song, \u201cOn the Road Again<\/a>.\u201d No, no, the best part is that while I make said double espresso, I get to recite aloud for June and Alice<\/a>, in my best\/worst Italian accent, the\u00a0molto<\/i>\u00a0gag-worthy slogan written in loopy script on the side of the machine:<\/p>\n

For Music ~ Puccini<\/i><\/div>\n
For Art ~ Bernini\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
For\u00a0<\/i>Espresso ~ Pasquini<\/i><\/div>\n

 
\nIn other news, do you know what goes nicely with espresso? Cream cheese pound cake. CREAM CHEESE POUND CAKE! (Holy holy holy, finally<\/i><\/a>. Delancey<\/a> and Essex<\/a> have been needy lately, heedlessly gobbling up my time. Stupid restaurants. My sincerest apologies.)<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Listen: I\u2019m not normally pound cake person. \u00a0Not a real<\/i>\u00a0pound cake person. I may have gotten riled up about a pistachio pound cake<\/a>\u00a0last year, and there was that\u00a0sweet potato pound cake<\/a> a few years ago, and I may have put a berry pound cake recipe in my first book, and I may have even found my way around a few\u00a0Sara Lee frozen pound cakes<\/a> as a teenager – remember the crust on top? The way it was soft and spongy and eerily uniform in its brownness? I loved<\/i> that part – but those were all special cases. I don\u2019t get wildly excited about pound cake as a general concept. \u00a0I can get behind a nice, plain cake, maybe\u00a0a busy-day cake<\/a>, but pound cakes are often\u00a0too\u00a0plain, too heavy, too doorstoppy. \u00a0Pound cake, in the classic sense, strikes me mostly as a vehicle for transporting strawberries (or other fruits) and whipped cream from a plate into my mouth. I know that, in the eyes of many, there\u2019s all kinds of sacrilege in this paragraph, but I\u2019m feeling daring.<\/p>\n

All that said, this pound cake is exceptional. It caught me off guard. I was looking for a way to use up some cream cheese that I had lying around, and I came upon the recipe in the excellent book Southern Cakes<\/a><\/i>, by Nancie McDermott. That\u2019s the same\u00a0book that gave us the sweet potato pound cake, so it\u2019s not surprising that this cream cheese version is spot-on. But really, it\u2019s a keeper. Lovely<\/i>\u00a0is the right word for it. There\u2019s nothing revolutionary about the ingredients – just your basic pound cake building blocks, plus a pack of cream cheese – but it\u2019s unusually moist and even-crumbed, with a top crust that crackles like a wafer.\u00a0And as you begin to chew, here comes the cream cheese, a gentle tang kicking through the sweetness. I love the way McDermott describes it: she says that the cream cheese makes a\u00a0\u201cquiet little sensation.\u201d Am I alone in being unable to use the word sensation<\/i>\u00a0without thinking of INXS<\/a>, and then having to listen to this song<\/a>\u00a0a few times, feeling mopey about Michael Hutchence\u2019s untimely death\u00a016 years ago? Probably?<\/p>\n

Anyway, I baked two loaves and froze one of them, and both Brandon and I noticed that the frozen cake, once thawed, was even better than the fresh one had been. This discovery makes me want to bake a half-dozen of these cakes and stash them away for future occasions that demand sweets on short notice. Like tomorrow\u2019s breakfast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n\n
\n
\n
Recipe<\/div>\n

Cream Cheese Pound Cake<\/h2>\n

Adapted from Southern Cakes<\/a><\/i>, by Nancie McDermott<\/h3> \n \n <\/header>\n\n
\n <\/figure>\n \n
\n