pound cake overload!

It all started with some homemade strawberry preserves–about a 3/4 c I had made for the sake of not letting my fresh, beautiful strawberries go to waste.  I had a brilliant idea: make a pound cake and put a ribbon of preserves through it!  Little did I know my true stroke of genius would be sprinkling 1 T of sugar on top before baking.

The pound cake was a hit (as was the second one I had made with chocolate-chocolate Newman-O bits in it) but really what caught my attention was the top: crispy, chewy, sticks-to-your-teeth-like-toffee-but-is-easily-freed… something about it just seemed right, better to me, so naturally, I had to make more pound cake to make sure it was really as good as I thought or a fluke incident.

 

Step One: Make your favorite pound cake recipe. I love the versatility of Vanilla Yogurt Pound Cake from Veganomicon; you can use whatever you like. Get the pans prepped, I’m assuming your oven is already hot!

On the left right: chocolate swirled with chocolate chips; on the right left: vanilla with blueberries

 

Step Two: Sprinkle a generous tablespoon of good ol’ sugar (I used vegan cane, I’m sure turbinado might work too) evenly over the top. I think it’s rather pretty pre-bake. 

 See?  Sparkly!

 

Step Three: Bake, remove, and allow to cool! It’s the hardest part, you’ll be terribly tempted to break off bits of sugary awning for ‘poison control testing,’ but trust me, wait till that bad boy cools and you will be handsomely rewarded.

blueberries inside 🙂 NOM

chocolate swirl (1/2 c batter + 3 T water + 1/4 c cocoa powder) and chocolate chips

And yes, it’s delicious. So go get out your food processor, some soy yogurt, silken tofu, and something fun to swirl inside. I promise it’s worth a few hours of patience, but make sure you make two loaves in case there is someone around who might think you’re going to share. A delicious, all-hours-of-the-day weekend treat!