Perfect Harmony
Many years ago, I had the pleasure of eating a pound cake that had a ring of cream cheese in it. It was moist and delicious and I loved the surprise of that inside layer.
The concept has stayed with me ever since and I have baked desserts that have an inside ring, my Inside Out Carrot Cake as a perfect example. I decided that I would give the traditional pound cake a try with a couple of twists; lemon pound cake with a blueberry filling. After all, how difficult could it be?
I learned very quickly, that it could be difficult, frustrating and infuriating. I was not sure what amount of cream cheese to use, so I started with a pound. After blending the filling ingredients together I folded in 6 ounces of blueberries.
I carefully placed the filling into a ‘well’ that I made with 1/3 of the cake batter, covered the filling up with the remaining batter and then baked the cake. After cooling for 10 minutes, I flipped the cake out of the pan. All was perfect up to this point. And then the cake fell apart. It was much too top heavy to stay together.
I could not believe the mess that I had on my hands. I posted a picture of the disaster onto Facebook and got back some very entertaining messages. If nothing else, at least round #1 brought humor into many of our lives.
Not to be dissuaded, the next day I decided to try turning the recipe into cupcakes. I thought that this could possibly help with the ‘weight’ issue I had with the first batch. I also decided to divide the batter in half and fold ½ of the filling into half the cake batter to see what the results would be.
I found that I did not like the smaller version at all. The half that was folded together lost the incredibly vibrant lemon taste of the cake and the blueberries failed to stand out, as well. The other half, the one that was a miniaturized version of the first round, did not fare much better. The cake lost its specialness.
Which meant that I was going for round #3. My Bundt pan is about 5,000 years old and gets temperamental sometimes when I bake citrus cakes. I was not going to have another disaster on my hands because of the pan, so I greased it and then lined it with turbinado sugar, a trick that never fails me.
My first hint that I had succeeded was when I unmolded the cake and it did not collapse. I let out a giant sigh of relief when I cut into the cake and it looked just like the way I wanted it to. Yet it was the rave reviews of the 17 people to whom I served the cake to that confirmed that I had, indeed, finally gotten it right.
Was it worth all the trouble just to get one pound cake? Absolutely. This Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake balances the two main flavors in such a way that each one is able to stand on its own, yet work together in perfect harmony.
| Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake | | Print |
- Filling:
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 ounces blueberries, washed and dried
- Cake:
- ¼ cup turbinado sugar
- 2¾ cups all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 14 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 2½ cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of 1 lemon
- ¼ cup lemon juice (1 to 1½ lemons)
- confectioners sugar, for dusting
- Preheat the oven to 325˚.
- For the filling:
- Place cream cheese and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl down as needed. Mix in egg yolk and vanilla.
- Remove from mixer and fold in blueberries. Set aside until needed.
- For the cake:
- Grease a 14 cup bundt pan. Sprinkle turbinado sugar all around inside of pan. Set aside.
- Whisk 2¾ cups flour and baking soda together in a small mixing bowl. Set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl down as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time, until combined. Add the vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice.
- On low speed, mix in one-half of the dry ingredients then add the sour cream. Add the remaining dry ingredients, scraping the bowl down in between additions.
- Spoon ½ of the batter into the pan. Carefully place the blueberry filling over the batter, trying not to touch the sides of the pan. Spoon the remaining cake batter over the filling.
- Bake at 325˚ for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before dusting with confectioners sugar.
