Raccoon and Lobster

When The Boyfriend realized that Food Librarian was doing thirty days of bundts, he immediately asked if I would be planning on following her lead. We agreed on 7 days of bundt as a compromise. Following the success of the Cinnamon Chocolate Bundt, I realized that I needed something amazing to follow it up with.

I settled on making Smitten Kitchen’s favorite pound cake for the second bundt, but there were so many chocoholics who would be eating this cake that I was nervous about its reception.

Oh Ronnie, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders – The most famous of which is “never get involved in a popularity war with Pioneer Woman” but only slightly less well known is this: “Never bet against Smitten Kitchen when baked goods are on the line.”

I had nothing to fear. Unless…they’re all lying to me…

Also! In making this cake I discovered a hot tip. Instead of discarding the wax paper wrapper on the butter sticks, you can use it to grease the bundt pan. Fast, easy, and less messy than the usual ways. Thank me later.

Orange Cream Cheese Pound Bundt adapted via Smitten Kitchen

1½ cups unsalted butter, room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour (I used 13.8 oz)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon grated orange zest

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease up your bundt pan. You want to use a 12 cup bundt. I used a 10 cup, and even though I made three little baby bundtings in cupcake form with the excess, the cake rose well over the height of the pan.

Place the softened butter and cream cheese in a bowl and beat until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is whipped to a light foamy texture. There’s no leavening agents in this cake so you want to get the air in there now.

Beat the eggs in one by one and then add the vanilla, flour, and salt all at once. Beat until just combined.

Pour batter into the bundt pan and shake to distribute evenly. Bake until a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cupcake sized bundts were done after 40 minutes.

You can serve this as is, or you can go a step further and baste the cake in

Orange Syrup

1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup sugar

stir to combine and pour over the pound cake when still warm and allow it to soak in.

and then layer it with a

Sugar Glaze
6 tablespoons powdered sugar
4 tablespoons milk

stir to combine and drizzle over the cooled cake. If you look carefully you can see the glaze puddled at the bottom of my cake. With other bundt shapes, it’s a little bit less messy.