Coconut Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Coconut Cream Cheese Pound Cake - made November 9, 2021 from Call Me PMC 

1 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup shortening

3 cups granulated sugar

1 8-ounce package full-fat cream cheese

7 large eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon coconut extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup sweetened, flaked coconut

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Generously grease and flour Bundt pan.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, shortening and granulated sugar until well combined and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the cream cheese and beat until well combined and fluffy, 1-2 minutes.
4. Alternately add eggs, 2 or 3 at a time, with the flour, 1 cup at a time, beginning and ending with the flour and beating until just combined after each addition.
5. Stir in the extracts. Fold in coconut. Pour into prepared Bundt pan and smooth top into an even layer. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 85-90 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs or clean.
6. Cool for 5-10 minutes before loosening sides and center with a small rubber spatula and inverting onto a serving plate.

I have mixed feelings about this cake but the downside comes from my baking rather than the recipe itself. If you look at the ingredients, you'll see there's no chemical leavening in it so you would expect it would have the dense texture of a pound cake. And it does.

Even though I did beat the butter, shortening and sugar together a fair amount to incorporate air into it, it still came out as as a thick batter and baked into a dense texture. I expected that.

What I didn't expect is how long it would take to bake. The directions say 85-90 minutes. I left this in the oven for over 100 minutes and during parts of the baking, even increased the temperature to 350 as my oven runs cool. 

I finally took it out after 105 minutes as the toothpick test came out "clean" but you can see in the picture above in the bottom left corner of the cake slice that it was still underdone. The top part of the cake was fine and tasted great. Bottom, inner parts, not so much.

Even if/when baked properly, this is a really heavy cake. In hindsight, I would beat the butter and sguar even more than I did and "cheat" with a little baking powder to lighten up the texture a bit.