Apple Cider Pound Cake

Hi there, remember me? Yeah, me neither!

This summer was a blur. It left me buried under a pile of CSA vegetables and farmer's market offerings. As much as I loved my CSA, I found myself overwhelmed with prepping, pickling and preserving the season's bounty.

And before I knew it, it was all over. Summer had gone and fall had arrived.



Growing up in New England, apple cider was a given at our family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. My grandmother would prepare the dinner and my grandfather was in charge of filling everyone's glasses. Besides washing the dishes, the cider was his only real responsibility and he was so enthusiastic about it!

When they got older and my grandmother could no longer host, my grandparents would come to my mom's house, my grandfather carrying a cooler that surely contained cider.

Now that they're gone, I think of them both every fall when I enjoy my first glass of apple cider. And you'll never find my Thanksgiving table lacking apple cider!



The cider flavor in this cake is not overly pronounced but the spices give a heavenly fall flavor!

Apple Cider Pound Cake
Source: Taste of Home
3 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups butter, softened
6 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup apple cider
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Glaze
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 10-inch tube pan (I used a 9 1/2 inch bundt pan and had some batter left over. Two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans should also work just fine.) and set aside.

In a large bowl (I used my stand mixer), cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a medium bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients and set aside. Combine cider and vanilla. Alternate additions of the dry ingredients and the cider mixture to the batter. Mix until well blended.

Spoon into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes (mine took longer) or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove cake from the oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then invert pan onto a cooling rack.

Combine icing ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Drizzle icing over the cake while it is still warm.

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake

You may be wondering where I've been. In fact, I'm wondering where I've been! Sadly, I've been around but not posting. It seems I've lost my bloggy mojo. And damn, if time doesn't fly! Before I knew it, a month had gone by, then nearly two! Don't fear though, I will find my mojo once more! Expect me to be back and posting regularly again soon!

But now, it's time again for another Daring Bakers challenge! The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. For a light(ish – it is cheesecake after all) springtime treat, I chose to make a Limoncello cheesecake.

My love of Limoncello started way back when Food Network was relatively new to me. I saw an episode of Mario Eats Italy all about the fruity liqueur. I was fascinated, mostly due to my love of anything lemon, and had to get my hands on a bottle.

For some reason, I didn't run out and buy some. No, I waited until Christmas and was happy to unwrap a bottle – a gift from my mother. I stashed it in the freezer and, when icy cold, finally had my first taste. Wow! What a refreshing spirit!

Strangely, even with my enthusiasm for it, this bottle lasted me forever. I'm not much of a drinker, you see. At Christmas this past year, my mother remembered that I had once wanted a bottle and bought me another, not knowing I had yet to finish the first. So now I figure, it's time to start using it up!

For the original recipe, please visit Jenny's site – the version below is a variation of Abbey's recipe.


Limoncello cheesecake
For the crust:
2 cups Nilla wafer crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:
3 sticks of cream cheese, at room temperature
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons Limoncello

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too. If using a two-piece springform pan, cover bottom of the pan securely with foil. Set crust aside.

Mix sugar and zest together until fragrant. Combine cream cheese and zest/sugar mixture in the bowl of a stand-mixer and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place a pan, larger than your cake pan, on the center rack of your oven. Place the cake pan into the larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge – you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill overnight.


Overall, this was a great challenge. I think the recipe could use a bit more lemon flavor – it was a bit too subtle. Perhaps some more limoncello or some lemon extract would intensify the flavor. Also, the crust was a bit soggy so I plan to blind bake the crust the next time I make this.


Now hop on over to the blogroll and check out the creative flavors the other Daring Bakers came up with this month!

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Valentino

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. They have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

The rules were as follows:
Bake the Chocolate Valentino and serve with homemade ice cream – any flavor we choose.

The challenge mentioned that it would be best to select high-quality chocolate as the cake would taste exactly like the chocolate used. Knowing this, I went on a search for any of the top three: Valrhona, Callebaut or Scharffen Berger.

My local grocery store doesn't carry these so I wound up searching Chowhound for any suggestions on buying chocolate locally. Luckily, I saw a thread regarding Trader Joe's and their chocolate selection. The only Trader Joe's in the area is a few towns away, but not too far to go for good chocolate.

When I walked into the Trader Joe's on a busy Saturday morning, I wandered about looking for the chocolate. I eventually found the Valrhona, but only in small bars. I combed the store up and down before finally asking an employee for help. He managed to find some tiny bars of Scharffen Berger for me but no luck on the Callebaut. He then recommended that I try the Trader Joe's brand of imported dark chocolate. It comes in "more than a pound" bars and, in his words, "we don't put crap in our chocolate!"

So here was my choice, spend a gazillion dollars on little bars of high-quality chocolate or spend $4 on the Trader Joe's brand. What to do?

Buy all three, of course!

I planned to make the cake three times and taste test the difference between the brands. Um, yeah, that didn't happen.

So, in the end, I made it once using the Trader Joe's chocolate. I'll have to find something else to make with my one pound each of Valrhona and Scharffen Berger.

Poor me. = )

A traditional Valentino is baked in a heart shaped pan, but I wasn't about to buy one just for this so I used my 8" x 8" square pan – I love that pan.


Chocolate Valentino (Flourless Chocolate Cake)
Source: Sweet Treats by Chef Wan
16 ounces (1 pound) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold gently until no white remains without deflating the batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140 degrees F. (If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.)

Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.


For a long time now, I had my eye on a Cuisinart ice cream maker. I had added it to my Amazon wish list but held off buying it. I was worried that I'd have no room for it in my teeny kitchen and that either I'd never use it, or I'd use it too much. (Moderation? What's that?!) Well when this challenge was announced, I knew the time was right and made my purchase!

Ideas were zooming through my mind for different flavors I'd like to try. Ultimately, I gave a list of about 10 options to Matt and let him choose.

When he took his first bite of this ice cream, he said, "let's never buy ice cream again!"

Now that's some good stuff!


Peppermint Patty Ice Cream
Adapted from Elise at SimplyRecipes (who got help from David Lebovitz)
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
8 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
1/2 cup chopped peppermint patties

Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan making sure the sugar and salt dissolve completely.

Pour the cream into a metal bowl set in a larger bowl of ice and set a mesh sieve on top. (I used a colander lined with cheesecloth.)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Temper the yolks by slowly pouring the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a wooden or heatproof rubber spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Pour the custard through the strainer into the cream. Then stir until cool over the ice bath. Chill mixture over night in the refrigerator.

One the mixture is thoroughly chilled, add peppermint extract, a 1/4 teaspoon at a time, until you reach the desired flavor.

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Once the ice cream reaches a soft-serve consistency, add your chopped peppermint patties. Move to an airtight plastic container and place a layer or plastic cling wrap on the surface of the ice cream. Place in the freezer (not in the door) for at least an hour, preferably several hours.

To serve, take the ice cream out and let it sit at room temperature for 5 minutes or so to soften a bit.

Makes 1 1/2 quarts.


Another great challenge for the Daring Bakers. I loved making my own ice cream and plan to make a lot of it in the coming months so stay tuned!


Be sure to check out the blogroll to see what variations the other Daring Bakers came up with this month!