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!