Brown Sugar Pound Cake

Personally, I find that using dessert recipes that claim to be "light" is a bit amusing - it seems like a complete oxymoron. Normally, this just results in an underwhelming product with nearly all the calories of a non-"light" sweet. However, this dessert surpassed any expectations I had for it, given its origins (a Cooking Light cookbook). 

I admit that I chose it because I was desperate - the only cookbooks I have available to me are severely lacking in the sweets department, and I was just too lazy to print something out from online. (Yes, the printer is a mere 15 feet away from the computer, but this should clue you in to just how sloth-like I am during summer vacation.) 

Anyhow, I picked up the cooking light book and was pleased to find the Brown Sugar Pound Cake recipe: it looked nearly as unhealthy as regular pound cake, and the book's writers claimed it was a staff favorite, so I decided to give it a go.

It was simply delectable.

I can't say I was expecting much, mostly I thought it would taste like a regular pound cake with a slightly darker flavor due to the brown sugar. What I got instead was a cake that was rich and creamy, and tasted like caramelized maple syrup. So. Gosh. Darn. Good.

So please, for the love of all things pound cake, try this recipe. You won't be disappointed.

Recipe:

Adapted from Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2001

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter, softened

2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 cup fat-free milk

1 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Position oven rack to lower third of oven.

2. Coat a 10-inch loaf pan with cooking spray and then flour all sides. (The original recipe uses a 10-inch tube pan, but I found that the loaf pan worked fine if you don't have a tube pan available.)

3. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl, stir well. Beat butter in a large bowl at medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add brown sugar and vanilla, beating until well-blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with milk, beating at low speed, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

4. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes of a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Sift powdered sugar over top of cake. (If using a tube pan, reduce cooking time to 1 hour 5 minutes)