A long overdue thank you and Tate’s Pound Cake with Dried Cranberries

In this first year of blogging I have left thousands of comments on my favorite blogs. For the first nine months or so, I have also left countless of comments for giveaways. I have to say that I am not the luckiest girl of this planet when it comes to prizes, giveaways, etc. and I say it with a smile on my face. I never buy lottery tickets because I know that the good luck goodess is not on my side. If there are 10 prizes and 11 tickets you can be sure that I am holding the 11^th unlucky ticket in my hands. This is a family curse following me, my mom, my dad, my brother and everybody else related to me by blood. I don’t complain. In Italy we say “sfortunati in gioco, fortunati in amore”, which reads more or less as “unlucky in the games, but lucky in love”. That works for me in the big scheme of “what is really important in life”. But come on….let’s be honest…who doesn’t like to win a little prize from time to time and feel like a kid…jumping around the house in silly happiness for a little victory. I DO! I DO!

That’s what has been happening in the last 3 months. The family curse has been broken over Christmas holidays. It started with me winning Josie’s giveaway at Daydreamer Desserts. I won a cookie press, right on time for the cookies exchange with my neighbors. Thanks Josie! I am in love with my cookie press.

The good luck goodess visited me again a week later, when I won a whole set of spices thanks to Christiane (at The Mom Chef. Taking on Magazines One Recipe at a time). Even if I don’t post about my cooking experiments I have to say that those spices have been very much appreciated in my home. Wally even started to cook more often since then. Hence, a double thank you to Christiane!

All this was followed by another amazing giveaway victory for which I owe a long overdue thank you to Evan at SweetEbakes. Through Evan I got Tate’s Bake Shop cookies and cookbook. I still have other two giveaway prizes to thank for….I promise my thank you will come soon, together with what I created with those giveaways prizes. But for today I would love to share with you what is already my favorite recipe of Tate’s book: the pound cake. It should suffice to say that after the first time I made it, I was asked to make it again twice in the same week. The pound cake is delicious in itself. I did not change a single thing in the recipe. I just added dried cranberries and we loved the addition but you can easily love it just plain.

The first time I made this pound cake I followed the recipe literally. I was a bit scared by the huge amount of certain ingredients. Three cups of sugar and six eggs?!? I hoped that these huge quantities were justified by the taste. But I have to admit, I got a huge huge huge pound cake and yes, the ingredients amount was totally justified by the amazing taste. I shared it with friends but I could not make another like that just for Wally and me. The second and third time I halved the ingredients and baked it in a 9by5 loaf pan and the result was just as spectacular as the first time. I’m leaving you with the full recipe. You will decide how much you want of it J

Sour Cream Pound Cake (with dried cranberries)

Ingredients

320 g (11.25 oz or 2 ½ cups) all purpose flour

65 g (2.25 oz or ½ cup cake flour

1 g (¼ tsp) salt

2 g (½ tsp) baking powder

225 g (2 sticks or 1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature

600 g (21.3 oz or 3 cups) sugar

5 ml (1 tbsp) vanilla extract

6 large eggs

240 g (8.6 oz or 1 cup) sour cream

1 cup dried cranberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 300F degrees and butter a 9” bundt pan.

In a small bowl, sift the flours, the salt, and the baking powder together.

In a medium bowl, mix the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer until the batter is creamy, light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and continue to mix. Then add the eggs one at a time, mixing and scraping down the bowl after each addition. Finally add the sour cream and mix until well incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients and the dried cranberries and mix the batter until they are well combined.

Spoon the batter into the bundt pan and bake for about 1 hour and 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.

Let the cake completely cool on a cooling rack before trying to unmold because it’s very soft and it will break into pieces if you try to unmold it while still too warm.

Have a sweet day!

Source: Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook by Kathleen King