As usual there were great choices this month for baking with the Cake Slice Bakers. We are still baking from the Southern Living's The Southern Cake Book.
Lane Cake seemed too wintery to me and the Tiramisu Layer Cake too rich, but the Icebox Lime Cake was appealing. In the end I decided to go with the Mexican Chocolate Pound Cake, but I only made half the recipe and I baked it in a loaf pan. My plan was to create some ice cream sundaes with a slice of cake for the base. This would be rich, too, but it has been so hot here (mid 90's yesterday) that I wanted ice cream. While I was thinking about that I decided to swap out the cinnamon for espresso and bourbon. That would go well with some coffee ice cream, bourbon whipped cream, salted chocolate sauce (thanks Barrel House lady!) and chocolate sprinkles on top for the sundaes.
This cake has both semisweet chocolate, melted, and chocolate syrup. Since our kids have been gone we have not had a reason to buy chocolate syrup, so I had to ask where it could be found in our local market...sort of embarrassing, but it is by the potato chips and mixed nuts. Seems a strange place to me.
This is a simple cake to make. You melt the chocolate and let it cool while you give both the butter and the butter/sugar mixture a good long beating to make it thick and fluffy. In go the eggs, then the cooled melted chocolate and the espresso/bourbon and vanilla. The last step is the alternate the flour mixture with the buttermilk. The batter, once it's finished, is silky and thick. I did increase the flour by 1/4 cup since I dissolved the espresso powder in 2 tablespoons of bourbon which increased the liquid in the recipe.
I love this cake! It is moist and tender with a dense crumb and good chocolate flavor. It made a great base for those sundaes, having enough flavor to stand up to chocolate sauce and coffee ice cream and a lovely sturdiness in contrast to the melting ice cream, fluffy whipped cream and drippy sauce. Our guests loved them and so did Sweetie. Maybe next time I'll make the whole recipe and have chocolate pound cake for days. We'll need a bigger container of ice cream....
