Summer has officially come to an end. Truth be told I am happy to be moving into a new season, my favorite one as well! Bring on the pumpkins, apples, leaf peeping, sweater weather and all the other Fall season fun! But if you are looking to hold onto summer just a little bit longer, I have a dessert for you that just might do that, an homage to the classic Neapolitan ice cream. Today’s Neapolitan Pound Cake has a layer of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.
I had a few hiccups along the way while making the batter for this cake. It’s what happens when you haven’t baked in a few months and your brain isn’t 100% into it. You make silly mistakes. I thought I was using a 1/3 cup measuring cup when adding the sugar to the butter, but it was a 1/2 cup one, so I ended up adding in an extra cup of sugar. I knew something was off when the mixture wasn’t looking right while beating it, so I had to start over. And then, while typing up the recipe for this blog post I realized another mistake, I used 2 packages of cream cheese when the recipe only needed 1. Eeek! Thankfully it only enhanced the cake by making it extra moist, but it would have been just fine with 1 package – which is how I wrote up the recipe below.
Hopefully I’ll get myself in the right mindset for Fall baking and the holidays so I don’t make anymore silly mistakes!
Neapolitan Pound Cake
For the Cake:
2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 8oz. packages of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large eggs
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
For the Strawberry Layer:
1 oz. bag freeze dried strawberry, processed into a powder
1/2 teaspoon strawberry emulsion
A few drops of red food coloring
For the Chocolate Layer:
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 F. Spray a bundt pan with baking spray and set aside.
In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.
In a large bowl beat the butter with a hand mixer on medium speed until creamy. Gradually add the sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Next add the cream cheese and vanilla extract and beat for an additional minute. Finally, add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until well blended.
Transfer 2 cups of the batter to a bowl and an additional 2 cups to another bowl. In one add the dried strawberry powder, strawberry emulsion and red food coloring and in the other the cocoa powder. Stir both batters well until well blended.
Pour the original (unflavored/vanilla) batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Gently pour the chocolate batter in top and finally the strawberry batter.
Bake in the preheated oven for 50-55 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe first appeared on Bead Yarn & Spatula
Bead Yarn & Spatula 