The Best and Easiest Pound Cake

This recipe makes 2 cherry pound cakes.

It may have originally come from Kraft, but I'm not sure. This is my original copy.

We always have this at Christmas time.You can leave out the cherries and have 2 beautiful plain pound cakes.  Or see my variation at the end of this recipe.

8 oz pkg cream cheese (250 g)
1  1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 tsp almond flavouring
4 eggs
2  1/4 cups flour
1  1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups maraschino cherries, drained and roughly chopped
    This turned out to be 1 - 375 ml jar of cherries.
    (don't use glazed cherries, I tried it once....yuck!)
1/2 cup ground almonds

In a mixer blend cream cheese, sugar, butter and almond flavouring.  Add eggs one at a time and beat.  Gradually add 2 cups of the flour and baking powder to the batter.

Mix remaining flour with chopped cherries and ground almonds.

Fold fruit mixture into batter.
Divide into two greased  9 X 5 loaf pans.
Bake in preheated 325F oven for 1 - 1  1/2 hours (closer to the 1  1/2 hrs) until toothpick comes out clean.

Variation:

This time I decided to make 1 cherry and 1 chocolate chip streusel pound cake.

Follow the above recipe until you have added the 2 cups flour and baking powder. Next, mix in the ground almonds.
Divide the batter in half. Take 2  1/2 cups for each loaf.

For 1 cherry loaf:


Use 1 cup of cherries when making one loaf and toss together with 2 tbsps of flour.

Fold this into the 2  1/2 cups of batter. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Set aside.

For chocolate chip streusel loaf:

Mix together -

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup dark chocolate chips

and set aside.

Take another 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and toss with 2 tbsps of flour.  Fold this into the other 2  1/2 cups of batter.

Spread half the batter in a greased loaf pan.  Layer the streusel mix over the batter and press lightly.  Top with remaining batter. It's a little tricky to spread the batter over the streusel, work slowly.

Bake these two loaves as per directions above. (The chocolate one will need the full 1 1/2 hours for sure)

Cool at least 15 minutes before removing from pans to cool completely on rack before slicing.

The original cherry loaf is supposed to have 200 calories for a 1  1/2 inch slice.

The chocolate one must be higher.

I usually cut the loaves in half and freeze, defrosting only what you need to serve.  One year I even sliced it then froze it.  That was a pretty good idea if I do say so myself!