Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake

Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake - October 3, 2009

I also made this recipe last weekend. I tend to go on baking sprees when I have large chunks of time on a weekend, typically during the day on Saturday if I don't have social plans. The great thing about pound cakes is they're not only easy to make but most of them freeze really well. When I bring baked goods into work, they always marvel at how I have "time to bake". Uh, newsflash, I don't have time but because I like doing it, I make the time. And usually I can only make time on the weekends so I'll bake a lot on Saturdays or Sunday evenings and wrap the stuff up to store in the freezer until I'm ready to bring them in. Typically, my freezer is most full by Sunday night and practically empty by Friday morning as I will have brought the weekend's baking bounty in by then.

Cookie doughs get portioned out in dough balls and put in ziploc freezer bags to be baked off the night before I need them. I don't believe in freezing cookies that are already baked - the thawing will affect their texture and baked cookies are more susceptible to absorbing odors of the things around them and freezer burns. Besides, it's much better to have a cookie freshly baked the night before than one baked much earlier and just thawed (shudder) before you consume it. Remember, if you have to have the calories, make them the best calories they can be.

Anyway, pound cakes get baked and wrapped up tight in foil then put in freezer bags. I don't believe in letting them sit in the freezer too long. Just because they actually can last long doesn't mean they should. I'm a stickler for freshness so nothing I bring into work has been in my freezer for longer than a few days to at most a week.

This particular recipe is from the Doughmakers Cookbook and while it bills itself as a pound cake, its texture and crumb was lighter than most pound cakes so I would consider this more cakey than your typical pound cake. I could tell it would turn out that way too because the batter was more liquidy than your average pound cake batter. Still, whatever you want to call it, it tasted pretty good. You never want to overbake anything, but especially not cakes as they dry easily. I took this out when the toothpick still had a few moist crumbs clinging to it to ensure it wasn't overbaked. I'll be repetitive on this topic but I can't abide dry cakes.

Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake

1 cup boiling water
Two 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate, chopped into small pieces
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ pound (1 stick) butter, softened
1 ¾ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup sour cream

Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 325˚F. Grease and flour an 8 ½ x 4 ½” loaf pan.
2. In a small bowl, pour the boiling water over the chocolate and stir to melt it. Allow to cool.
3. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. In another large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, continuing to beat as you add each ingredient.
4. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and beat thoroughly. Add the sour cream and continue beating. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat until combined. Add the chocolate mixture and beat until just blended.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edge of the cake and remove from the pan. Continue cooling the cake on the wire rack. Dust with confectioners’ sugar before slicing.