Brown Sugar Butterscotch Pound Cake

Brown Sugar Butterscotch Pound Cake - made March 27, 2013, recipe adapted from Lady Behind the Curtain

I made this on a weeknight because I wanted to use up some milk and I figured I'd take it into work the following day.  I had an early morning meeting the day I was bringing it in so I only had time to cut a chunk to take a picture of later then I brought the rest of the cake in and hopped into my meeting.  I intended to go back to the communal kitchen and take a piece for a snack later.  After I emerged from my morning meetings just over an hour later, the cake was gone.  Crumbs stared back at me from the empty cardboard plate that once housed an entire (minus a chunk) Bundt cake.  Huh.  Okay, I guess they liked it.  Considering I'm one of the first people to get into the office in the morning and I swear I was only tied up for an hour, maybe an hour and a half, that told me more than words that this was a good cake.  Or people were hungry and had cake for breakfast.  (Those are my kind of people, btw.)

I hadn't even frosted it like the Lady Behind the Curtain did.  I modified her recipe to exclude the toffee bits and pecans.  Instead, I added butterscotch chips because I thought those would bring out the brown sugar flavor.  I left off the caramel drizzle (but included the recipe below) because I figured the cake would be rich enough with all that butter and the butterscotch chips.  Plus it was getting late and I wanted to read a new book I'd gotten that week instead of making frosting - the bookworm won out over the baker.  Good thing I had that taste test piece I had held back and was sitting on my kitchen counter for when I got home.  Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to tell you that this cake is excellent.  Great brown sugar and butterscotch flavor and terrific pound cake texture.  It didn't come cleanly out of the Bundt pan because the butterscotch chips sank to the bottom and clung stubbornly when I inverted the cake onto its plate.  But this is a case of looks don't matter and taste trumps all.

Cake
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
5 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
1 recipe Caramel Drizzle

Caramel Drizzle
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Spray a 12-cup Bundt pan with nonstick baking spray with flour.  Set aside.
2. Beat the butter until creamy.  Add sugars, beating until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  
3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.  Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture in thirds, alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Beat until just combined.  Stir in butterscotch chips.  
4. Spoon batter into prepared pan.  Bake until a wood pick inserted near the center of cake comes out clean, 85 to 90 minutes.  TIP:  Cover the top with foil to prevent excess browning is necessary.  Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Remove from pan, and let cool completely on a wire rack.  Spoon Caramel Drizzle over cooled cake.  

Caramel Drizzle

1. In a medium saucepan, combine condensed milk and brown sugar; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, whisking frequently.  
2. Reduce heat, and simmer for 8 minutes, whisking frequently.  Remove from heat; whisk in butter and vanilla.  Let cool for 5 minutes before using.