Southern Buttery Pound Cake

With strawberry season in full swing, I wanted to make a pound cake for some yummy strawberry shortcake! I found a good recipe for pound cake at foodnetwork.com (a Paula Deen recipe) but added more vanilla and cooked it for a little longer. This pound cake is very moist, dense and forms a little bit of a buttery crust on the bottom that is flaky. Yum! Here is the recipe:

Printable Recipe Here
Ingredients
    1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
    1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
    3 cups sugar
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    3 cups all-purpose flour
    1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    6 large eggs, room temperature

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. 
Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt or fluted tube pan (or use the nonstick spray that is made specifically for baking that has the flour mixed in).

In a large bowl or mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese at medium-high speed until creamy. Add the sugar, beating until fluffy (about 5-6 minutes). Beat in the extract.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating until just combined. Add 2 eggs, beating until just combined. Repeat the procedure twice with the remaining flour mixture and eggs. 

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, and I do mean spoon as it is really thick. Tap the cake pan on the counter about 4 or 5 times to help the thick batter spread and settle to the grooves on the bottom of the Bundt pan.

Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean or the cake starts to pull away from the side of the pan, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Cover the cake with aluminum foil to prevent excess browning during last 15 minutes of baking, if necessary. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan, and cool completely on a wire rack. 

For the strawberries, I just sliced them up, sprinkled them with 2 teaspoons of sugar and mixed them up. Then let them sit for about 5 minutes; this makes a syrup on the berries.

Let me know if you try this recipe and what you think of it's taste.

Note: Instead of just vanilla extract you could substitute 1/2 tsp almond or lemon extract with 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.