Friday Faves – Fun and Fearless in Beantown makes Drunken Pound Cake
I hope everyone enjoyed the week of banana recipes. Hubby and I are still on vacation for a few days, but luckily Michelle from Fun and Fearless in Beantown was able to send me her Friday Favs post before I left so it could go up on time (Thanks again Michelle!) We first met at a blogger event, although I can’t remember which one. It might have even been the King Arthur Flour trip. It was a funny meeting though because we had been following each other’s blogs for a while so I definitely felt like I knew Michelle even before meeting her. Michelle claims she’s not a baker, but I’ve watched her challenge herself in the kitchen and sometimes I swear she bakes more than I do! Her blog is about food, Boston restaurants and events, and she’s even doing a 30-by-30 list, just like me!
Hi everyone! I’m Michelle from Fun and Fearless in Beantown. Although I write about different topics on my blog, a majority of my blog posts relate to food – whether it is exploring the local restaurant scene, trying out new recipes, participating in cooking classes or just playing around in the kitchen. I think we all need a “fun and fearless” attitude in life and my blog makes it easy to find one when it comes to food.
To be honest, baking doesn’t come easy to me and I’ve really been trying to explore more in the kitchen when it comes to baking. Thankfully I have bloggers like Jen who provide me with lots of inspiration, motivation and guidance!
Recently, I decided to try my hand at a Drunken Pound Cake. I found a recipe for Perfect Pound Cake on Everyday Food and followed it loosely. First, I gathered my ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan (the original recipe tells you to sift the flour but I skipped this)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 large eggs, room temperature (the original recipe tells you to lightly beat the eggs first but I skipped this)
1/2 teaspoon salt (the original recipe calls for coarse salt but I used fine salt)
I preheated the oven at 350 degrees. I lightly greased and floured a loaf pan. In a large bowl, I beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high until very light and fluffy. I added the vanilla, then the eggs and beat them mixture some more.
With the mixer on low, I added the salt and then gradually added the flour. I beat this well to combine the batter as needed.
I poured the batter to the loaf pan and baked it for forty-five minutes until it was toothpick clean.
The original recipe says to bake it for sixty-five minutes but my oven tends to run high and have a faster baking time for most recipes. I suggest that you modify the baking time based on your own oven.
I cooled the pound cake in the pan for an hour before removing from the pan to cool completely before slicing.
When the pound cake was ready to serve, I sliced it up and lightly drizzled it with G.E. Mazzenez Crème de Fraise des Bois. This is a sweet strawberry dessert wine that is great to pour on ice cream or with bubbly. My boss gave me a bottle and I knew this pound cake would be perfect for the wine.
I served the pound cake with some blackberries but any fresh berries will do.
This Drunken Pound Cake was definitely a success and I’m looking forward to continue experimenting with baking in the kitchen. Thanks to Jen for motivating me to bake more and thanks for the opportunity to guest blog today!
Be sure to check out all of my favorite bloggers as they are featured on Friday Favs!
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I am of two minds on this post. On the one hand, my OCD really kicked in when I read that you had not followed Mark Bittman’s recipe but still decided to write about it. Seemed a bit sloppy for a nerd and an engineer. On the other hand, that is how Pasteur discovered Penicillin. Bittman is such a great cook, that I think he deserves better treatment; so I plan to do him the honor of making his recipe. I am not going to make the other two though!
Oops! Senior moment that – it was the Scottish scientist and Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming in 1928. Apparently, the Pasteur Institut ignored the work of a French physician, Ernest Duchesne, who in 1897 discovered the curative properties of the Penicillium Glaucum, a different mold than the one Fleming discovered, but in the same genus. Gotta love Wikipedia.
There are two tapioca recipes on the Minute Tapioca box. I always use the one for Fluffy Pudding, which calls for 2 cups milk and whipping the egg whites separately from the cooked milk with tapioca and egg yolk. I think you will find the pudding much improved over the basic recipe.
Also, the quality of the vanilla makes a huge difference in something like tapioca. Cooks Illustrated likes McCormick and I found this on amazon and at Sam’s Club in large bottles for very reasonable prices.
One other note: I find that CI has a sweet tooth: their recipes are sometimes too sweet for my taste, though they are a go-to source otherwise.
This is an interesting discussion. I tried the Kraft recipe today. I threw everything (except the vanilla) in the blender before putting it on the stove. I also added 1/2 tsp. salt and a bit more vanilla. I actually thought it was sweet enough already, though. However, I agree with your overall conclusion that it’s a bit boring. Well, at least it was easy. Anyway, next time I may a recipe using large tapioca. 🙂
Thanks for the comparison.