Lemon Pound Cake with Warm Blueberry Sauce

I come from a family of proud home bakers.  I developed my love for baking helping my father put together delicious desserts in our tiny, pea green family kitchen.  This recipe for pound cake came from my father’s sister.  My Aunt DeeDee loved two things in this life: Jesus and baking.  Even after being blinded by a brain tumor in her mid thirties, she would still insist on baking every family members’ birthday cakes.  Even without her sight, she still had the touch for the perfect cake.  This pound cake recipe came from her very old Kraft cookbook.  I’ve doctored it up with a bit of lemon and blueberry, but at its heart, it’s still my favorite of Aunt DeeDee’s masterpieces.

This cake is a champ.  It will always pull through in the clutch.  Why?  Because it has a secret ingredient: cream cheese.  Incidentally, I think cream cheese should be nominated as a super food along side spinach and avocados. This secret ingredient adds fat and flavor, and insures that, unless left in the over for the entirety of your Scrubs marathon, it will not come out dry and over baked.

And not so fast!  I have another secret to share with you.  In order to get an entrenched, even lemon flavor, I add lemon to this cake in two ways:  zest and juice.  But to get the most our of your zest, add the zest to your granulated sugar and with the back or your spatula, or with a plastic bench knife, grind the zest into the sugar.  The sugar will act as a sand paper, and will draw out all of those delicious lemon oils.  Then, when you cream the now fragrant sugar with the butter and cream cheese, you’ll diffuse lemon flavor all through the cake.  Brilliant!

Lemon Pound Cake

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adapted from Kraft Cookbook

1 8oz package cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon juice

4 eggs, room temperature

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat oven to 325.  Sift together flour and baking powder, set aside.  Cream butter and cream cheese in an electric mixer.  In the mean time, work the lemon zest into the granulated sugar.  This process should take about five minutes, and the sugar will become very fragrant.  Add the sugar to the butter mixture and continue creaming.  Add the lemon and vanilla extract.  Add eggs one at a time, beating for about one minute each.  Scrape down the bowl after each addition.  Slowly add the sifted flour and baking powder.  Don’t over mix in the electric mixer.  Bring the ingredients together with a wooden spoon.  Pour into a greased and floured pan and bake for 60- 75 minutes, or until tooth pick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Easy Blueberry Sauce

1 bag frozen wild blueberries (try Trader Joe’s)

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons of water

Make the blueberry sauce just before you intend to serve the pound cake.  It can be made in a flash.  Throw a bag of frozen blueberries, (I prefer the frozen wild blueberries found a Trader Joe’s) into a sauce pan with  granulated sugar.  Let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes.  The blueberries will have released some liquid, and the sugar will be dissolved.  While still at a simmer, mix in the cornstarch mixture.  Still constantly until you see mixture thicken a bit, and remove from flame.  Dress the moist pound cake with warm blueberries.  Breakfast perfection.