Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Strawberry Coulis

Last week, my whole body got confused. For the first time since last fall, I felt the urge to bake something with pumpkin. The reason? I went out of town to San Diego for a work conference. The minute I stepped off the plane, I had to ask someone if this was real. I mean, c’mon. 70 degrees at 1pm? IN JULY??! No way. Down here, we get maybe 2 days like that, and they’re in the middle of October. I’m completely jealous of y’all who call San Diego home. When I came home, I was instantly reminded with the 105 degree heat index that it is definitely still the summer.

I guess I should embrace it, since it’s here for another month or so. When it comes to baking in the summer, I try to make things that aren’t super rich. I like to stick to using fruit and simple flavors, like this pound cake. While pound cake contains an unreal amount of butter, for some reason, it just works really well with fruits. This pound cake is perfectly moist on the inside, but on the outside, the cake bakes up to a nice, sort of crunchy crust (hard to describe, but I swear…it’s great). And the strawberry coulis (pretty much a fancy name for sauce) that accompanies this cake is just perfectly refreshing and light.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Strawberry Coulis
Source: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 package (8 ounces) Philadelphia brand cream cheese, at room temperature (the brand is recommended in SK’s post)
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract plus 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt

For the coulis:

• 2 cups quartered hulled strawberries (about 12 ounces)
• 1/4 cup water
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Directions:

1. To make the cake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a bundt pan very well to prepare it for the cake batter
2. Place the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a mixer and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is smooth. Add the sugar and beat the mixture on high for at least five minutes, until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs in one at a time, beating well after each egg and scraping down the bowl with a spatula regularly. Add the vanilla and almond extracts, as well as the flour and salt. Beat the mixture on low until the mixture is just mixed (be careful not to overbeat).
3. Add the batter to the bundt pan and tap the pan to ensure that the top is even. Bake the cake for 75 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out cleanly.
4. Take the pan out of the oven and allow the cake to cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 20 minutes, then flip the cake out onto a cooling rack, allowing it to completely cool there.
5. To make the coulis (which can be made one day ahead), combine the coulis ingredients in a blender, and puree the mixture until it is very smooth. Optional: press the mixture through a strainer to remove the seeds. Chill the coulis until cold.