The latest, and perhaps most awesome version of Van Halen Pound Cake, cinnamon orange pound cake is equal parts sunny citrus and warming cinnamon. A lovely cake for summer or any time of the year!
zest of 1 large orange, or about 1/4 teaspoon orange oil
1 ½teaspoonsvery best vanilla
5large eggs at cool room temperature
13oz. cake flour
1teaspoonbaking powder
scant 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
6ozbuttermilk, at cool room temperature
4ozheavy cream, lightly whipped just until thickened and mounding
Instructions
Spray a 12 cup Bundt pan Very Well with pan spray. Dump in some flour and knock it around until it completely coats the spray. Knock out all the excess flour.
Position an oven rack on the 1st rack below the middle position and preheat the oven to 350 F.
Use the creaming method to put this cake together, creaming the butter first, then the butter and sugar, and then adding in the salt, cinnamon, zest or oil and vanilla. Scrape the bowl as necessary.
Rather than adding one egg at a time, crack them all into a measuring cup and whisk them together. Drizzle them into the batter in about 10 additions. This helps to maintain a stable emulsion so you’ll end up with a better batter. I promise.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda, and add alternately with the buttermilk on low speed. Begin with half the dry, then half the buttermilk, 1/2 of the remaining dry, the rest of the buttermilk, and end with the last bit of dry. Only mix for about 15 seconds in between additions. Scrape the bowl as necessary.
Turn the mixer to high for about 3 seconds. No more.
Fold in the softly whipped cream by hand.
Spread evenly into your prepared pan and bake for about an hour and five minutes, give or take. Test it at about 55 minutes and then go from there.
Let cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Turn out onto a rack, and then put the cake right back into the pan. Wrap the whole thing up in Saran wrap and place in the freezer until cool. You can let it freeze all the way if you want, but it’s not necessary. This step allows you to keep inside the cake all the moisture that would otherwise evaporate during cooling. It is a magical and useful step. You can skip it, but once I tried it, I haven’t looked back.
Dust with a bit of powdered sugar–it’s really all this cake needs.
Tell your family you love them as you serve them their cake.