Saturday, March 15, 2014

Serendipitous Saturday Brings You Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Quick Caramel Glaze

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back for the weekend (I know you missed me!!) and I'm not deterred in the slightest after that pie fail. I have another book I bought as a giveaway and decided I needed one, too. 

I let Ana choose which cake she wanted to make and she chose Brown Sugar Pound Cake with glaze. Hm. Not what I would have picked, but I was game! Preheat the oven at 325F and mix together in a bowl and set aside:
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
(I like this picture. It wasn't raining, can you tell? My little prism is casting rainbows!)
You'll need:
3 sticks butter
2 3/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (eek, I'm almost out!)
1 cup milk
Oh, look! Rainbow bright! Ok, not quite, but I thought it was cute. His expression says, "Mama, you're killing me softly with this whole rainbows and butterflies stuff."
Yes, mothers are annoyingly bright and cheerful. We should be more down to earth, logical, cut and dried. He was right... Except, when I wasn't watching, I caught him talking to Thor.
And then a kiss for good measure! I mean, really! I hardly get kisses and THOR gets a smooch?
Anyway, beat butter in the mixer until fluffy. (For some reason, I only have one picture of Thor in action. Perhaps jealousy...)
When the butter is fluffy, add the brown sugar 1/3 at a time, then all of the white sugar. When that's mixed, add the flour, but only half. When it's incorporated, add half the milk. This is like the dump cake recipe that needed to be alternated. When the flour and milk are in, pour into a greased bunt pan, or two greased loaf pans.
After about an hour and ten minutes, check to see if the top is spongy when touched, and a toothpick comes out clean.
Set it on a wire rack for 30 minutes, and then carefully invert.
OK, I have to include this picture. Makes me laugh! He was inhaling deeply over the warm pound cake. I must look exactly like this, eyes rolling back into my head and all.
This is his "I'm ready for cake" face.

But we still had to make the glaze. So the cake was left to cool on a platter while we whipped up the glaze.
Melt one stick of butter and one cup light brown sugar on low heat until combined. Stir for five minutes, until it's smooth, not gritty. Add a 1/2 cup evaporated milk and bring to a boil. Take it from the heat and add 4 cups of confectioner's sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.
(I have to say, this made A LOT of frosting/ glaze. Even my kids, who love frosting, barely made a dent in this. I may have to make cinnamon rolls on Sunday to use up some of this. So, maybe half the recipe? I think it would still be more than enough.)
  Anyway, after the powdered sugar is added, stir or whip (I used an egg beater) to blend it until it lost some of its sheen and turned thick.
Ta-dah! A bucket of Caramel Glaze! We'll never do without again!
So, hubby was putting up trim in the living room and I invited him into the kitchen for a cake date.
Isn't that sweet?
Mmm-hmmmm, we nibbled our cake and drank our coffee with pinkies outstretched while kids bumped into our knees and toddlers pulled at the table cloth. If we ignored the towering pile of dishes (strangely, he was really good at that) and the steaming stove, it was almost romantic!
Ahhhh, nothing says togetherness like cake.
The glaze set up almost immediately so it didn't run all over the plate, but I was watching!
Come on over, Serendipitous Saturday folks and grab a piece! There is a lot left over! Not as much as the glaze, but you can take some of that home with you when you go. Like Amish friendship bread, but sweeter and you don't even have to bake it.
And this is a gratuitous shot I took of the moon tonight. Isn't it lovely? I always ehard about the man in the moon, but my husband says in his country they say 'el conejo', which is the rabbit. See? He's sort of standing up right, with his two ears to the right? Yeah, me either...

18 comments:

  1. IT DOES LOOK LIKE A RABBIT!!! That cake looks amazing. Please mail me some.

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  2. Did you see it? How funny! It took me about five years to see it. You're a quick study...

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  3. I think I need me a grandkidlet on hand to help. Your little guy is just so precious! Kissing Thor???

    Anyway, I'm going to make this BUT not until you tell me how much WHITE sugar it takes. I get the brown sugar bit... it's a brown sugar pound cake, after all. But you say to dump the white in all at once, and I can't find any other mention of white sugar. ::sigh:: Why do I always have to nitpic, right? But. I. Want. To. Make. This on Saturday! (I know this is Saturday, but if I haven't gone to bed yet the calendar isn't allowed to flip to the next day.)

    Love that shot of the moon. :)

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    1. Oh o, sorry I didn't get back to you, Helen! I sure hope you found another pound cake recipe to make... or did you have to revert to store-bought frozen pie??? (I've never had one. I've heard they're an abomination. But that could be wrong.)

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  4. And I want to know what light sugar is. Pretty please.

    And now I have to confess to spending ages trying to remember which kitchen appliance Ana was. Only then I figured out she was a living breathing daughter. LOL

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    1. LOL! I have a child younger than Mr. Edward, there, but he hates his photo taken. He's always present, but unseen. Also present is an older child, usually Ana or Isabel. Ana loves to bake, but not with small people. Isabel would rather help small people than read the recipe. And the two middle boys are usually only around to eat the goodies. So, in the picture, it looks like it's just the two of us. Ahhh, how deceiving!

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  5. I'm trying to figure out who Ana is too - thought it was a kid but then only boys are in the pics! and you need to sorta squat down a bit getting pics of the mixing bowl LOL - had to enlarge the pic to see the pyrex print ;-) LOL! I luv vintage stuff! I don't think he was kissing Thor- probably licking off some batter that splattered up there! :-)

    so was the cake worth it? I think I'd have gone for the one on the cover...or something fluffy and chocolate!

    Susanna

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    1. Susanna, the FUNNIEST story about that bowl: I went to a friend's house and it was her DOG'S WATER BOWL. I almost passed out.... Vintage pyrex for a doggy dish! I said her dog was very spoiled... and she had no idea what it was! All her dishes were a different color, and it was older, so she stuck it on the porch. I ooh'd over it so much, she washed it out and gave it to me. Isn't that SWEET???
      (And yes, the doggy still has a very nice bowl.)

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    2. wow dog water bowl?! well when I bought my townhome the previous owner left some dark blue HEAVY pans - a small sauce pan that I ended up using to hold icky grease from my fry daddy and a dutch oven. my mom sneered at it as 'cast iron with paint on it'..it became dog water bowl! fast forward about 10 yrs later when I was getting more into actually cooking and realized I had 2 pieces of Le Creuset - an expensive line of cookware! love the stuff now and was able to rescuie it thought has a few nicks! but it does cook well I have to admit but lifting it just plain sucks!
      Susanna

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    3. Oh, my gosh, that is so funny!! Le Creuset is CRAZY expensive! And very heavy, true. I don't have any of that but I have a Martha Stewart 6 QT enamel cast iron pot that weighs as much as a small child!

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  6. I love pound cake, and when you add chocolate it makes it even better. But with caramel? Heavenly :)

    And don't tell that boy, but I think he's cute as a button. Those cheeks are to die for!

    The rabbit in the moon makes sense. I can see it. But when I was younger, I couldn't see the man in the moon. I'd stare and stare at it, but just couldn't see it.

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    1. IGNORE the chocolate reference in the above comment. I have chocolate on the brain! I meant brown sugar.

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    2. It was okay. It definitely had a caramel flavor. Maybe I'm just not a pound cake fan... or maybe I like them in the citrus version? Anyway, it was good and the kids loved it, but I'm sort of irked to have two quarts of icing left over!

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  7. He's so dear! and looks like his mother! I make this glaze for a bunch of things all the time, but it doesn't last long around here. Good stuff!

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  8. I should send it to you! And it went on cinnamon rolls this morning and we STILL have a few cups left! Mercy me, that was a weird recipe.
    And he's a real doll. Even sweeter when he's asleep, hahahahaha. No, seriously, he's probably the most "strong-willed" child we've ever had. A real live wire. He's going to change the world in a big way... once he realizes he can't always have his own way. :D

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  9. What cute, CUTE photos! And a wonderful cake. I had this cake at a shower today! Talk about serendipity. :) It was so good!!

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    1. That is weird! I've never even heard of it before this book!

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    2. I hadn't heard of it before today either. It was so brown I thought it might be a spice cake. Then my friend who'd made it called it a brown sugar pound cake. She had caramel icing on it. It was amazing.

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