Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Avocado Pound Cake

Yep, thats what it says...pound cake and avocados. I know, weird right? But I have a fixation with the weird, in more things that just food.

This recipe came from Here. I always try every recipe the way I find it the first time, then I mess with it, if I like it enough.

it makes makes 2 9 inch loaves.


Ingredients:


3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
flesh of 1 1/2 ripe avocados, just over a cup to a cup and a half of avocado, mashed

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Grease and flour two loaf pans and set aside.

I had a sous chef for this pound cake, someone who is recently obsessed with avocados and is the reason I was trying this out in the first place.....I give you KC (Hubby, Geek & for about 1/2 hour, my sous chef & food photographer)



In a medium sized bowl, sift together flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda.  Set aside.  Set the four eggs out on the counter to come to room temperature while you beat the butter and sugar.

I prepped everything ahead (I always do) ...here's what it looks like....


Avocado mashed by my handsome sous chef, BTW.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter on medium speed until softened and pliable.  Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.  Add the avocado and beat another minute to incorporate.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is thoroughly mixed.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating 1 minute after the addition of each egg.  Beat in vanilla extract.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add half of the flour mixture, all of the buttermilk, and then the rest of the flour mixture.  Beat just until combined.

It turned a really purdy green color.


Divide the dough between the two loaf pans and place in the oven.



Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

So you see those very dark loaf pans I used to make this? Yea well I somehow forgot that it would take longer to bake in them and after 50 minutes I was too afraid of burning the loafs so I took them out. The toothpick going in came out clean.  They looked really nice when they came out too, all even and brown.


I let them cook on the racks for a while and KC said "Let's cut into them!". And this is where it all went wrong.  The inside....

Yeah, those green blobby spots are the spots that didn't cook all the way. So rather than ditch them completely and have wasted an evening, I proceeded to hollow them out and throw away the blobby icky parts. 

This is whats left.... 
I asked if I should fill it with flowers or something to camouflage the lovely hole. LOL. But alas, I'm not perfect...who knew?! Still it was a tasty cake (the parts you could actually eat) but was deemed too sweet by KC. I think I'd make it again and somehow change the sugar content but thats after some more, much needed, pound cake research. 

All in all it turned out ok. I think the people at KC's job (Hi TCH!) will be the happiest of them all because they prob get to eat a loaf of it because there is a LOT of cake in my house right now. 

Coming later this week...menu planning.

2 comments:

  1. The recipe seems fine to me! Cooking them a little longer on a lower heat would help cook the inside without making the outside burn. You could also try just filling the loaf up less, or using a smaller pan.

    Maybe you can fill those holes with some kind of topping? Fill it with fruit?

    But how did it taste!? Im intrigued on the avocado thing.

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  2. It was the pans not the bread, and my stupid uneven cooking oven. I prob wont make it again because it scared KC off so fast but it was yummy (I ate half a loaf myself.

    I ended up just cutting it into small squares and sending most of it to work with KC. Better to have some edible than throw it out, right??

    It really tasted good, light avocado flavor good cakey-ness. Def try it!!!!

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