Pound cake

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope, that you are all doing just fine!

Now it’s time for another article and another recipe from me, however, this kind of recipe you have already seen, I guess, and, well, if you still haven’t , then you can read about it this time in this article, because now I’m writing about it and if you are reading this, then you will get the information about the recipe, of course.

Although, I have written about this chocolate pound cake in my other article, now I prepared kind of the same pound cake, however, it was not like the other one at all, I mean, the basic principle is the same everywhere, however, this pound cake was with different ingredients, such as apple pieces and coffee powder and things like that, while the other _ the chocolate one _ was with chocolate mostly and chocolate paste and cocoa powder. And this pound cake was prepared with half of those ingredients that I used to prepare that chocolate paste pound cake, because the other time, when I prepared that chocolate pound cake, I  was kind of surprised when I saw, that the inside of the cake, I mean, the dough, was coming out like some lava or something like that. So that , this time I decided to have some ingredients divided and prepare pound cake with those things, and, besides, I thought, that for two or three people, the other size of the cake was pretty much more than enough, and that half of those ingredients would make  a perfect match for that purpose and, well, when it was gone, I could always prepare some another one, you know. And then there’s this thing, too, that when preparing things in small quantities, their taste is better and everything’s just perfect in it,  I guess, than the large amounts and stuff like that.

So that, I decided to have a pound cake. Well, at first, I was planning on having a simple, plain pound cake, I mean, I had in mind this so called “white” pound cake with nothing fancy or stuff like that and just this plain dough with eggs and flour and heavy cream and butter and sugar, and I was thinking about those pound cakes, which have lemon in them or something like that, or even some orange. You know, I just love orange and I have these muffins tasted, which are very good, if you want to know the truth, and they are baked with that Bakery House or something like that, I don’t even remember the name, though I tried really hard to remember it. Well, anyways, they have these muffins, however, they are more like pound cakes, and they are so soft and pleasant to eat, that you can eat the whole one without even noticing that! They have chocolate muffins, orange muffins, vanilla muffins and muffin with chocolate.And don’t get confused here _ chocolate muffin and this muffin with chocolate are not the same, I mean, the chocolate muffin is pretty dark with all that cocoa powder and chocolate that it has inside, however, the other one _ the one with chocolate looks like a zebra , I mean, it’s prepared with just cocoa powder and the plain dough, so that’s why it’s not called the chocolate one. And that chocolate one is just amazing if you love chocolate and cocoa and things like that. However, this orange muffin is pretty good, too, and it’s really light to eat and is soft and moist and has this amazing orange taste and it’s just perfect. 

Anyways, I was thinking about preparing that kind of simple, plain pound cake, however, then I changed my mind and decided to have some walnuts and apple pieces and stuff like that in the dough to make it kind of rich and great and enjoyable to eat. You know, it’s like an adventure when you are eating something and suddenly you discover something inside it and it’s like a journey somewhere else, where you explore and discover some amazing things. So, that’s why I like things, which have some other things inside, I mean, those cakes and stuff like that, that I really don’t know what they have as ingredients. Well, some people don’t really like that, of course. You know, back in my childhood I just hated cakes with raisins in them and I would eat them no matter how badly I wanted to eat them. Well, there were some cakes, which I could see with my own eyes and I could take those raisins out and eat them that way. In any case , I wouldn’t eat those raisins and I would just throw them out. There were these soft pound cakes or bread or something like that at our school, which just cost 20 Tetris each and they were kind of sweet on the top and we just loved eating them, and we would buy them on breaks and eat them. At first, they were good, however, then they started adding those raisins in them to make them richer in taste, of course, however, that was really bad for me, because either I had to buy something else, or I had to take those raisins out of them and eat them that way. Well, there was this thing, that if someone else was around, I mean, someone from my friends and she loved raisins, I could give those parts of my cake with raisins in them to her and she would eat them and that was my solution to all this. Everyone was happy! You know, I really love those things today, too, I mean, this summer, when I was in Georgia, I just really wanted to have some of those pound cakes or sweet breads or whatever you call it and I just couldn’t help myself but to buy two of them in Batumi plain market or shop or whatever and I just ate them with this satisfactory feeling inside of me, that  I couldn’t shake.

Well, that’s enough for the introduction, I guess, because you may not even want to hear about my historical stories and things like that, so that, I’m going to tell you about my pound cake recipe, that I just prepared the other day and it was pretty delicious, I can say, even if I used half of the ingredients, that were supposed to be used, I guess, however, the baking form is kind of small for those ingredients altogether, as I decided, so that it was just perfect to get half of the ingredients and prepare doughwith them, if you want to know the truth. So that if you have this halogen oven and it came with the baking form for cakes or for cooking the rice _ I will tell you , that it’s a red baking form and it’s really beautiful if you look at it, you will really understand, why I used the half of the ingredients for baking this pound cake.

Ingredients:

• Unsalted butter, 40 grams
• Oil, 1 tablespoon
• ½ cup white granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 small apples
• ½ cup sliced walnuts
• 4 small dried plums
• Cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ cup heavy cream (or Matsoni or sour-cream)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Preparation process

Well, first of all, I had these apples, which were kind of old, I mean, they were kind of wrinkled and stuff and, well, I like eating apples with their skin on and when they got wrinkled, I just didn’t want to eat them, so I knew, that they could be used in baking. There’s this apple pie, which people really love and I thought, that I could bake it, however, then I decided, that since I had been baking these pound cakes and they have been pretty good so far, I could just bake one of them and use those apples in that pound cake. So that, I just took those apples and peeled them and cut them into small pieces like cubes and things like that, you know. Well, I decided to have them cooked a little on a frying pan and when I had all of them in small pieces and stuff, I just took a frying pan and oiled it a little and put those apple pieces in it and turned the gas on a medium heat. So, those apple pieces were being cooked and I occasionally stirred them for them not to get all burned or something like that. Then I thought, that they might be kind of not so sweet and added some white granulated sugarto them, just to get them a little sweeter. Well, after a couple of minutes, they were all set, I mean, they slightly changed their colour and I decided that their cooking time was done and I could just turn the gas off.

In the meantime, I got this unsalted butter in a small saucepan and added that one tablespoon oil and put it on a gas , so that the butter would get melted. Well, to be honest, that was not a simple unsalted butter, rather, it was this Ona Cream margarine, which my sister loves using in everything, except for the pizza dough, and I just melted that margarine with the oil. After it was all kind of melted, I added the white granulated sugar to the saucepan and mixed them together while the sugar dissolving in that hot oil. Then I turned the gas off and let the mixture cool a little and then I put it into a bowl of this standing mixer.

After that, I just added those 2 eggs to the mixture and started the mixer, so that everything would get mixed well, while I took that Matsoni and sour cream our of the fridge. I combines them together, so that it all made ½ cup and then I had this baking soda took and I just added it to the dairy products and mixed them well together and those things just got all fluffy and stuff, you know. So, after that I just poured that mixture into that mixing bowl and mixed them together as well and then there was time for some vanilla and cinnamon and I also added some coffee powder, however, it was not that much to actually change any taste in the pound cake, if you want to know the truth.

Then I added that 1 cup all-purpose flourto the mixture and at first, I mixed it with a spatula and then, after it kind of mixed with them, I started the mixer and let it mix everything thoroughly.

Well, now about the other additions. I had these walnuts and they were whole ones, you know, so I had to slice them, so that I took my chopper-blender and just sliced them there. You know, that’s really a good invention and I just say that every time I use that thing, because it’s just really good in everything and I just like preparing some stuff because of that, if you want to know the truth. For example, I hate cutting and chopping onions and I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t  have this chopper-blender, because with the help of it, I can just easily chop those onions and have them greatly chopped and put no effort at all in it, you know.

Anyways, after slicing those walnuts, I had to chop those dried plums into smaller pieces and that was it. Well, this time I decided not to add raisins to my pound cake, because it would have those apple pieces and I thought, that the raisins would be too much for it. So that I added those walnuts and apple pieces and dried plums to the mixture and mixed them well together. And then the dough was ready to be cooked!

Well, I prepared my halogen oven and set it on a high temperature, so that it would get hot and it would be preheated and in the meantime, I greased that baking form with some oiland poured my dough into that baking form and put the lid on, too. You know, it’s just really easy to take this baking form and put it into the halogen oven or somewhere else. It has this comfortable thing, where you can put your hand and lift it and I just really like that.

So that, I took the baking form filled with dough and put it into the halogen oven and set it on 1 hour and with 175 degrees Celsius and just went to do my things, because it really didn’t need any attention or something like that, you know. It was just perfectly filled and heated and everything was just fine. And this time, when everything was halved and the ingredients were just great for that baking form, it didn’t spill out or anything and I decided, that this amount of the ingredients were just perfectfor this baking form and I would just use them the other time, that I would bake this kind of pound cake. However, now I want to try and bake this orange pound cake, because I just love when something has an orange taste and it’s just a heaven for me, I guess. Well, I can’t really decide, which one is more heaven for me _ chocolate taste or orange taste, but both of them are really great and I just love them  both, I guess.

Well, the cake was done in one hour and I still checked it, of course, with a wooden stick and it was all baked and everything and I could just take it out of the baking form and then decorate it with some things. You know, some people bake the pound cake, which is too oily or something like that, and it just doesn’t taste that good for me, if you want to know the truth, however, if you just bake a pound cake just like this one, it won’t have any oily stuff there and you will love it, I guess. Well, at least, I love it and my family members love it, too, and it’s pretty easy to prepare comparing all those other cakes, that I had been trying to bake and couldn’t bake them, because every time I tried to bake them, something happened and those cakes were not doing good, I mean, some of them were all flat and didn’t double in size or whatsoever and some of them were high in the middle and flat on the edges and, well, that was when I decided to have some biscuits bought and then prepare some cream filling and make some cakes that way, you know, when you buy the prepared biscuit, you already know, how it will taste and that it will be just great for your cake, I mean, you have already seen the biscuit and decided to buy it and stuff, while when you are baking, you don’t really know, what the biscuit will look like or taste like and you just hope, that everything goes fine, however, if it doesn’t come out as expected, you just get really frustrated and disappointed and then it seems like you have wasted all your time and effort and money and ingredients and everything on something, that didn’t even come out right and that you should just throw into the trash.

Anyways, this pound cake was really good and it was sweet and with all those walnuts and apple pieces fulfilling each other, everything was just fine. I took it out and put the baking form upside down and shook a little and the cake came out from it just at once and it was pretty awesome. Then I just took my Kakao topping and poured it onto my pound cake like curved lines or something like that, so that it would be a decoration and then I sprinkled some sugar powder on it and that was pretty much it, I mean, it was all done and all we had to do is to cut it into slices and taste it! You know, I have this thing, which is both a cutter and a taker or whatever and I just bought it for 1 Laris and besides, it also had birthday candles with it, so that it actually didn’t even cost one Lari, and it’s a great thing , I mean, you can cut a cake and take that piece of cake twith that thing without taking another thing to help that one take the cake. It’s a great one and if you need it , you should know, that it can be found in 1 Lari stores in Tbilisi and also it is in Pasazhi shopping center, where the stuff for birthdays and baking cakes and cooking is.

So, I hope, that you enjoyed my recipe for this pound cake and some stories of mine from the childhood and stuff like that. I really recommend preparing this pound cake, especially if you don’t have much time for cooking some things, because it only takes 1 hour to get ready and that one hour you don’t even have to do anything, it just needs to be in that halogen oven for that time. And, well, the preparation process depends on you, however, you can very easily have everything done in just 15 minutes or even less, it all depends on whether you have this chopper or sliced walnuts, or if they need some preparation and everything. In general, baking this pound cake, when you have all those things and when you don’t need to put much effort in it, can be done in a couple of minutes and then all you have to do is to put it into the halogen oven, set it on one hour and just do your job while waiting for it to be baked.

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