"Sara Lee... 谢谢你..."
Remember this jingle from the Sara Lee pound cake advertisements? I became aware of Sara Lee through this advertisement. Nestled in a rectangular aluminium foil cake tin, the cake would glimmer at you, full of moisture and extremely soft. I remember only two flavors at that time, all purpose butter and chocolate.
I cannot remember how the advertisement went, my memory had failed me many times, this is yet another example. But the jingle, the last bit, and the tune along with it cannot be erased from my memory. The image of a lusciously moist looking cake nestling snugly in the rectangular aluminium foil tin lingered on till today.
Honestly, as a child, I would stare longingly whenever the advertisement was aired. We could not afford such a luxury. I do not know how much it cost back then. To my childish mind, anything western is luxurious. Anything western is expensive. Sara Lee pound cakes fell into that category and it was inaccessible. My air-steward uncle would buy the butter pound cake for my maternal grandfather. I used to look forward to his visits whenever he came home from flying. There would be exotic treats and the Sara Lee pound cake was one of them.
I still love these pound cakes. But now, I prefer the chocolate swirl pound cake. All chocolate pound cake had become too sweet for me, but my kids love both flavors. Every time I walk past the portion of the fridge stashed with Sara Lee pound cakes in any supermarket, I will stop and engage in some mental debate. Should I buy some? Pound cakes as the recipe goes, is laden with a pound each of flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Even though the portion is much smaller, the ratio of 1:1:1:1 remains. This is quite enough to subdue my urge to grab one.
Having said that, the itch to bake pound cakes refused to be subdued. One fine day, while shopping at Daiso (that wonderful $2 shop!) I saw some recipe books stashed on top of a shelf displaying different types of aluminium foil cake tins. And a copy featuring two slices of delicious looking pound cake stared at me. The title is even more alluring: 「おいしくかんたん パウンドケーキ」 "Delicious & Simple Pound Cakes", it says. Grabbed it off the shelf, flipped through the thin book and was completely bought over. You are easy to please, some might say. Perhaps so. There are 13 pound cake recipes featuring different flavors like chocolate, peanut butter, matcha, black sesame, lemon and milk coffee just to name a few. It also comes with beautifully inspiring photos of each bake and a simple glossary of baking terms, so how can I not be moved to add this to my shopping cart? Most importantly, it is in Japanese. ^_^ I get to bake and do a bit of revision at the same time, and it is only $2. Kills two birds with one stone (book I mean)!
Since I had been wanting to bake something involving peanut butter, naturally, the first attempt from this book will be the peanut butter pound cake. Firstly, some visual shock. This is how my bake looked like.
The slit along the centre was achieved by cutting the batter, which had been baking for 7 minutes, with a wet knife. According to the recipe book, it is supposed to improve the appearance of the bake. The photos in the book looked great, and mine only bear 60% resemblance. I need to improve on the slit. Here are two pieces of sliced peanut butter pound cake to share.
Besides using peanut butter, peanuts and pecan nuts are also added. See the bits and pieces of nuts embedded in the cake? This gave me a good opportunity to clear a packet of pecan nut which I bought some time back from a supermarket in Bangkok. It had been banished to the deep freeze for a while as I didn't quite know what to do with it. Yes, I sort of kicked myself after I bought it.
When the cake cooled, I hastened to take some photos and give it a taste. The crust was a little crispy, I wonder why. And the area about 0.5cm from the crust all around the cake tasted a little dry. If you look carefully, you will notice that the outer portion of the cake is slightly paler in color than the inner portion. That's the 0.5cm area I am talking about. It was not as moist as I wanted it to be. Basically, it was no Sara Lee pound cake standard. Maybe it was my way of beating the butter and egg, or maybe it was the way I stirred in the flour. I did not put the cake in the fridge for fear that it will turn rock hard, what with so much butter and peanut butter in it. By the next day, the crust actually softened and the cake was comparatively moister. What a strange pound cake...
Peanut butter pound cake
(Adapted from "Desserts Collection No.12: Pound Cake", by Misato Tanaka, edited by Daiso Shuppan K.K., published by Daiso Japan)
Ingredients
(8x18cm pound cake tin)
Group A
Unsalted butter 100g
Peanut butter 100g
Group B
Cake flour 120g
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
********************
Cane sugar 100g ^
Eggs (Large) 2 pieces
Peanuts 30g
Pecan nuts 20g
Method
1. Bring the eggs and Group A ingredients to room temperature. Grease and line cake tin. Preheat oven to 140degC. Sift Group B and set aside.
2. Roughly chop the peanuts and pecan nuts and toast them in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, then set aside to cool. Increase the oven temperature to 170degC in preparation to bake the pound cake later. For me, I toasted the nuts first before chopping them up roughly.
3. To make the batter, place Group A into a bowl and beat with a mixer till creamy.
4. Add the cane sugar (I used light brown sugar instead) and beat the mixture until light and fluffy.
5. Lightly beat the eggs, add 1 tbsp to mixture 4 and beat well. Add the remaining eggs in 3 to 4 batches, beating well after each addition.
6. Add Group B into mixture 5, using a plastic spatula fold in the flour mixture until no lumps are visible. Add the chopped nuts and fold evenly.
7. Pour the batter into cake tin, ensure that the batter reaches the four corners of the cake tin. Raise the batter at both narrow ends of the cake tin. This is supposed to produce a better looking pound cake that has a nice convex dome. I think the next time I make another pound cake, I will take a picture of what this step means. Drop the batter filled cake tin from a slight elevation to remove any air bubbles in the batter.
8. Bake in a 170degC preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. 7 minutes after placing the cake tin into the oven, remove it once and make a slit along the centre of the batter with a slightly wet knife (not dripping wet, just slightly wet the blade).
9. Remove the cake once a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the tin and remove the baking paper immediately, cool completely on a wire rack.
Notes:
^ The sugar used in this recipe is called きび砂糖 (kibi satou), which is cane sugar. Guess it means sugar made from sugar cane. Further check on the internet did not yield much explanation specifically on this term kibi satou, but did unearth tons of information on how cane sugar is processed from sugar cane and how these are refined and crystallized at different stages to produce sugar of different shapes, sizes and sweetness. Read somewhere some time ago that light brown sugar is good at retaining moisture, hence used this sugar for this recipe. Worked pretty well, but I still cannot explain the strange behavior of the crust.
Since I had been wanting to bake something involving peanut butter, naturally, the first attempt from this book will be the peanut butter pound cake. Firstly, some visual shock. This is how my bake looked like.
Besides using peanut butter, peanuts and pecan nuts are also added. See the bits and pieces of nuts embedded in the cake? This gave me a good opportunity to clear a packet of pecan nut which I bought some time back from a supermarket in Bangkok. It had been banished to the deep freeze for a while as I didn't quite know what to do with it. Yes, I sort of kicked myself after I bought it.
When the cake cooled, I hastened to take some photos and give it a taste. The crust was a little crispy, I wonder why. And the area about 0.5cm from the crust all around the cake tasted a little dry. If you look carefully, you will notice that the outer portion of the cake is slightly paler in color than the inner portion. That's the 0.5cm area I am talking about. It was not as moist as I wanted it to be. Basically, it was no Sara Lee pound cake standard. Maybe it was my way of beating the butter and egg, or maybe it was the way I stirred in the flour. I did not put the cake in the fridge for fear that it will turn rock hard, what with so much butter and peanut butter in it. By the next day, the crust actually softened and the cake was comparatively moister. What a strange pound cake...
Peanut butter pound cake
(Adapted from "Desserts Collection No.12: Pound Cake", by Misato Tanaka, edited by Daiso Shuppan K.K., published by Daiso Japan)
(8x18cm pound cake tin)
Group A
Unsalted butter 100g
Peanut butter 100g
Group B
Cake flour 120g
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
********************
Cane sugar 100g ^
Eggs (Large) 2 pieces
Peanuts 30g
Pecan nuts 20g
Method
1. Bring the eggs and Group A ingredients to room temperature. Grease and line cake tin. Preheat oven to 140degC. Sift Group B and set aside.
2. Roughly chop the peanuts and pecan nuts and toast them in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, then set aside to cool. Increase the oven temperature to 170degC in preparation to bake the pound cake later. For me, I toasted the nuts first before chopping them up roughly.
 |
| Cannot resist putting up this picture, loved the color of the pecan nuts. Roasted the nuts first before chopping. |
4. Add the cane sugar (I used light brown sugar instead) and beat the mixture until light and fluffy.
5. Lightly beat the eggs, add 1 tbsp to mixture 4 and beat well. Add the remaining eggs in 3 to 4 batches, beating well after each addition.
6. Add Group B into mixture 5, using a plastic spatula fold in the flour mixture until no lumps are visible. Add the chopped nuts and fold evenly.
7. Pour the batter into cake tin, ensure that the batter reaches the four corners of the cake tin. Raise the batter at both narrow ends of the cake tin. This is supposed to produce a better looking pound cake that has a nice convex dome. I think the next time I make another pound cake, I will take a picture of what this step means. Drop the batter filled cake tin from a slight elevation to remove any air bubbles in the batter.
8. Bake in a 170degC preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. 7 minutes after placing the cake tin into the oven, remove it once and make a slit along the centre of the batter with a slightly wet knife (not dripping wet, just slightly wet the blade).
9. Remove the cake once a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the tin and remove the baking paper immediately, cool completely on a wire rack.
Notes:
^ The sugar used in this recipe is called きび砂糖 (kibi satou), which is cane sugar. Guess it means sugar made from sugar cane. Further check on the internet did not yield much explanation specifically on this term kibi satou, but did unearth tons of information on how cane sugar is processed from sugar cane and how these are refined and crystallized at different stages to produce sugar of different shapes, sizes and sweetness. Read somewhere some time ago that light brown sugar is good at retaining moisture, hence used this sugar for this recipe. Worked pretty well, but I still cannot explain the strange behavior of the crust.
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