POUND CAKE

POUND CAKE
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup granular Splenda or equivalent liquid Splenda
5 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon or orange extract, optional
1-2 teaspoons vanilla
6 1/2 ounces almond flour (1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
Lemon or orange zest, optional

Put all of the ingredients in a medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until no bits of cream cheese remain and the batter is thick and fluffy. This will only take a minute or so. Spoon into a greased 9-inch round cake pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Bake at 350?50-55 minutes. I suggest checking the cake after 40 minutes or so because mine was done in less than 45 minutes. The cake will be golden brown and firm to the touch when done.

Makes 8 servings
Can be frozen

With granular Splenda:
Per Serving: 346 Calories; 31g Fat; 10g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 6g Net Carbs

With liquid Splenda:
Per Serving: 334 Calories; 31g Fat; 10g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 3g Net Carbs

This cake tastes just like my Grandma's pound cake, but perhaps a slight bit more grainy from the almond flour. This is so good that I had to wrap up half the cake and stow it away in the freezer to keep me from being tempted to eat more. Next time I may try baking it in a loaf pan or perhaps in muffin tins for individual cakes. I think little muffin-sized cakes would be great split and filled with strawberries and topped with whipped cream. I might also add a little grated lemon rind or even try it with orange extract and orange rind.

Other than the adjustment in the baking time, I made one other change. The original recipe said to stir in the extracts at the very end and I decided to skip that step and just put them in along with the other wet ingredients. I used liquid Splenda in mine and the results were outstanding.

LOAF CAKE VARIATION
Bake in an well-greased 8x4" loaf pan at 325?for 50-55 minutes or until well browned. Place pan on cooling rack and let cool 10 minutes before turning cake out of pan.

MINI BUNDT POUND CAKES
Divide the batter between 5 mini bundt pans that have been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350?for about 29 minutes or until golden brown. Invert and remove from pans at once onto cooling rack. They should slip out easily.

Makes 10 servings of 1/2 cake each

With granular Splenda:
Per Serving: 276 Calories; 25g Fat; 8g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 5g Net Carbs

With liquid Splenda:
Per Serving: 267 Calories; 25g Fat; 8g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 2g Net Carbs

I bought myself a tin with 12 mini fluted tube pans so now I can make individual serving pound cakes. They came out very cute and are half the size of the mini bundt cakes. Bake them for 19-20 minutes. The tins were a little too full. My batter came all the way to the top of the tins, so I think you could get more servings by filling the tins 3/4 full and make a few mini muffins with the excess batter. I plan to serve these with strawberries and whipped cream and will post a photo later. Here are the adjusted counts for 12 servings:

With granular Splenda:
Per Serving: 231 Calories; 21g Fat; 7g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 4g Net Carbs

With liquid Splenda:
Per Serving: 223 Calories; 21g Fat; 7g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 2g Net Carbs

Here's the strawberry shortcake:

UPDATE 4/12/12: I made a few tweaks to the recipe. I added some salt and simplified the instructions. The original method was overly complicated. It wasn't necessary to have the eggs at room temperature or to add the ingredients in so many stages.

UPDATE1/25/15: I've simplified the recipe even more. As long as the butter and cream cheese have been softened, you can dump everything in the bowl at once and beat it until you no longer see bits of cream cheese. The batter comes out nice and thick this way. When adding ingredients in stages, the batter had a tendency to look curdled.

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