Cold Oven Pound Cake with Crushed Strawberries

The kids and I had this for supper this evening:

Brad happened to be gone so I just cooked up a bunch of veggies from the garden and served some cheese along side. The meal was delicious (thought I) but I knew that the kids would not be thrilled.

So I made a cake for dessert. I wanted to use the last of the strawberries in an extravagant fashion and we were not disappointed.

I cut this recipe out of the Lancaster Farming paper. It’s a weekly newspaper full of things that farmers like to read…ads for tractors and equipment and articles about anything concerning agriculture. There is a section for the cooks in the family, too: recipes and a food question/answer part. I always look forward to that section, especially this month. June is dairy month and lots of people submit their favorite dairy recipes.

Anyway, I cut this cake recipe out two weeks ago and figured it would make the perfect base for strawberries. With all of that butter, sugar, and cream cheese, it sure was extravagant! And it was a good way to use up a bit of the cream cheese I made a few weeks ago.

From the words of Joy, the recipe contributor, “This is the pound cake that tastes like the kind “grandma” use to make!”

Cold Oven Pound Cake

Adapted from Joy Timmons’ recipe in The Lancaster Farming, June 2013

Note: I made a third batch of this and got a small cake out of it. I didn’t want a large loaf.

3 sticks butter

3 cups sugar

8 oz cream cheese

6 eggs

1 t vanilla extract

3 cups unbleached flour

Cream the butter, sugar, and cream cheese until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and then the flour. Pour into two parchment-lined loaf pans (I used 4 x 8-inchers). Slide the cakes into a COLD oven and set the temp for 300 degrees F. Set the timer for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check the cakes. You may need to give them a little more time. They should be golden brown around the edges and a toothpick should come out clean. Remove them from the pans when they are finished baking and cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 2 loaf cakes

Crushed Strawberries

This recipes hails from the Mennonite Community Cookbook. It originally called for 1 full cup of sugar. I figured if I put all of that in, I might as well just spread jam on my cake!

2 cups well crushed fresh strawberries

1/4 cup sugar

Stir to dissolve sugar. Refrigerate a few hours to chill thoroughly. Serve over ice cream, cake, or breakfast carbs of your choice.

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Strawberry Shortcake

A favorite spring-time supper of mine. I grew up eating this alone for supper at least twice during strawberry season.

Shortcake means different things to different people. Some make a biscuit and serve it with berries and sweetened cream. My dad grew up with a sponge cake as shortcake. What I remember from my childhood resembles this recipe here, though my mom said this isn’t the exact one she made.

To me, shortcake is a lightly sweetened yellow cake which should be topped with sugared strawberries and fresh, cold milk. Yum!

Strawberry Shortcake

Adapted from Mennonite Community Cookbook

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 T butter, melted

Strawberries (sweetened if desired, for serving)

Cold milk (for serving)

Mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the milk, eggs, and vanilla until mostly mixed. Add the butter and mix until evenly combined. Pour into a greased 9-inch round pan. Bake at 350 for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Serve warm or cooled with milk and strawberries.

Serves: about 4-6 for a main dish, 8 or 10 as a dessert

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Ricotta Cheesecake

So apparently my rennet was old. About 4 years ago I went through a spell where I made a bunch of mozzarella cheese. When Tage came along, I put my cheese making supplies away and haven’t looked at them since until a few weeks ago when I started making cottage cheese. Well, I made a batch of weird cottage cheese and then when I tried some farmhouse cheddar the other day, the curd never set firm enough. Instead of throwing out the batch, I drained the soft curd through cheese cloth for several hours and got a ricotta-like cheese. It tasted delicious.

And it was destined for this lovely cake.

I never thought I’d like ricotta cheesecake. I’m not a huge fan of the cheese itself. This cake, though, was perfect – very lightly sweet and decadent enough to feel like a big indulgance. I love a good, rich cheesecake now and then but I can never eat more than one or two slices of a cake so I don’t make it very often. But I could eat a lot of this cake. Maybe that’s a bad thing!

Oh, and I got some new rennet and my cheese making is going splendidly. I’m pressing my third wheel at the moment while the other two air-dry on the counter. They smell wonderful!

Ricotta Cheesecake

Adapted from Joy of Baking

Crust

7 whole graham crackers, crushed into fine crumbs (about 1 cup)

1 T sugar

1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix the crumbs with the sugar and butter. Press into the bottom of a greased 8- or 9-inch spring form pan. Surround the bottom of the pan with a layer of tin foil. Set aside.

Filling

1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened

2 1/2 cups (20 oz) thick ricotta cheese*

2/3 cup sugar

4 eggs

1 t lemon zest

1 1/2 t vanilla extract

Beat the cream cheese until it’s smooth. Add the ricotta and sugar and beat again. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined each time. Stir in the zest and vanilla.

Pour the filling into the crust. Set the pan into a larger pan and fill with about an inch of water. Slide the whole thing into a preheated 350F oven and bake for about 45 – 60 minutes or until just set in the middle. Remove the cake from the water bath and chill before eating. Serve plain or with a fruit sauce.

*If your cheese is on the thin side, hang it to drain for a while in cheese cloth but you’ll want a full 2 1/2 cups of thick cheese when you are finished draining it.

Serves: 8 – 12

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Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

I love me some rhubarb.

A couple of years ago I was complaining to my grandma that there weren’t very many rhubarb recipes in my cookbooks. Well, she up and gave me one of her cookbooks. Bless her! I love it, too. It’s not a pretty picture cookbook but one of those small-town books in which the recipes are submitted by home cooks. There are about half a dozen recipes titled “rhubarb pie” and then dozens more with different flavor variations. There are probably four “rhubarb strawberry pies”.

I chose this pie because it only had a half cup of sugar in the ingredient list. It is not very sweet. If the thought of tart rhubarb makes your mouth draw up, go ahead and add more sugar. We like it this way, though, so I haven’t tried it sweeter.

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

Adapted from Exclusively Rhubarb Cookbook edited by Sondra Astor Stave

2 1/2 – 3 cups chopped rhubarb (I used fresh)

1/2 cup sugar

1 t lemon zest

3 T (scant) minute tapioca

1/4 t salt

2 cups strawberries (I used frozen unsweetened…partially thawed)

3/8 cup pie crumbs

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

Stir together the rhubarb, sugar, zest, tapioca, and salt. Let sit 15 minutes. Stir in the strawberries. Pour fruit into the pie crust and sprinkle the crumbs evenly over top.

Bake the pie in a preheated 450 oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 and bake another 30 – 45 minutes or until it’s bubbly and the filling is thick. Cool completely. Delicious served alone or with ice cream or lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Yield: 1 9-inch pie

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Spice Cake

I like baking things. I especially like baking old-fashioned sorts of goodies. Is spice cake old-fashioned? I don’t know but it feels like it to me.

This cake is muy delicioso…tender, spicy, a bit rich. Usually I make desserts with substance (you know, like with fruit for the vitamins or dairy for some protein) but there are times that I just want dessert. A few weeks ago I wanted spice cake. So I made one. Yum!

Spice Cake

Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated, Jan/Feb 2008

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (divided use)

1 T ground cinnamon

1/2 t ground allspice

1/2 t ground cloves

1/4 t freshly grated nutmeg

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup unbleached flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

2 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

1 t vanilla extract

1 T grated fresh ginger

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 T mild molasses

1 cup buttermilk or sour milk

Heat 4 T butter in a small skillet until melted. Cook until slightly browned. Add spices and cook, stirring, for another 15 seconds. Remove from heat and let come to room temperature.

While butter is cooling, whisk the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In another small bowl, beat the eggs, yolks, vanilla, and ginger. Set this aside, too.

In a mixer bowl, place remaining 8 T butter, sugar, and molasses. Beat until pale and fluffy, scraping bowl as needed. Add cooled butter/spice mixture and egg mixture. Beat well.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the bowl. Beat until incorporated. Mix in 1/2 of the buttermilk, another third of the flour, the rest of the buttermilk, and the rest of the flour. Beat just until combined.

Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13″ pan. Run a knife through the batter to remove any air bubbles. Slide into a preheated 350 degree oven and bake for about 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature before frosting.

Cream Cheese Icing

5 T butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/2 t vanilla extract

Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Frost the cooled cake.

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