chocolate chip rum pound cake with brandy strawberries

A very good friend is coming into town this weekend. She'll be here tonight, most-likely around 8. She might want dinner, but I figure, she'll especially enjoy a good dessert (and a cup of decaf?!). I was going to whip up an ice cream cake, but today I thought to make a pound cake that I've been wanting to try for months. I am sure there are a bunch of different pound cake recipes out there, but the one I know of comes from our sister churches unleavened bread cook book. Here it is:

Preheat oven at 300

3 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of shortening
1 cup (two sticks) butter

Whip 'em until smooth.

Add 5 eggs, one at a time. (FIVE. That's a lot, right? Yeah, it is...) The beauty of egg whites is that they swell when beaten vigorously. Hence: beat them vigorously (for about 5 minutes).

1 cup milk
1 teaspoon coconut extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons rum extract (or rum, you know, whatever...)

Add it to the rest of the mixing bowl.

As the above beats, sift 3 cups of flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt, then gradually add the flour and salt to the rest.

I then added about 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips. I love a little touch of chocolate in just about anything!

You can use a tube pan or 3 loaf pans. (I used 1 loaf pan, a muffin pan and had a LOT of overflow...note to self!) The beaten eggs will rise even more with heat, so, though it's unleavened, it still rises quite a lot. If you're using the loaf pans, fill it about 1/2 way.

Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.


The brandy strawberries is a take-off from "boozy clementines" out of my REAL SIMPLE, Easy Delicious Meals

1 pound strawberries, tops cut off, halved
1 1/2 cups brandy
3/4 cups honey (or 1/2 cup sugar)

In a medium saucepan, bring the brandy, honey and 1 1/2 cups water to a boil. Add the strawberries, simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool. Then transfer it to a serving bowl, cover and refigerate for 2 hours, up to 3 days.

Serve the strawberries over a thick slice of pound cake.

The very cool thing is that you don't have to make your own pound cake. You can totally buy one at the store and still have this fancy, simple dessert in very short order. <3