Peek-a-boo Pound Cake

Sorry it’s a bit wordy.. there a quite a few steps!

Ingredients

Ingredients for Vanilla Pound Cake
1 1/2 cups cake flour (If you don’t have cake flour replace 2 tbs of flour per cup with 2 tbs of corn starch)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature

To make the Chocolate Pound Cake use above ingredients plus 1/3c. cocoa powder and 1/3 cup hot water.

Directions:

BAKE CHOCOLATE POUND CAKE
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly grease a loaf pan with a little butter and dust over with flour.
2. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt until blended; set aside.
3. In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Sprinkle half of the flour mixture over the egg mixture and stir until both are just incorporated.
6. Stir in the sour cream, then sprinkle with the remaining flour mixture and stir until evenly distributed.
7. In a small separate bowl, combine together cocoa powder and hot water. Then add to batter.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and tap gently on the counter to even out and settle the ingredients.
8. Bake about 70 minutes, or until lightly browned, and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted. Let cool for a few minutes, before removing from loaf pan.

After chocolate pound cake is removed from the oven, let sit in pan for 10 minutes and then remove. Loosely wrap cake in non-stick aluminum foil or wax paper (I used wax paper), and then place in the refrigerator until cold, approx. 1-2 hours.

Meanwhile, prepare the vanilla batter, using same recipe as above – and leave in mixing bowl. (I waited to make this batter after the 2 hours of cooling the chocolate loaf.)

Once chocolate loaf is cold, remove from refrigerator and place on cutting board. Cut loaf into several thick slices (about 1- 1 1/2 inch thick). *My loaf wasn’t very tall, so I cut my bread horizontally in half and got two long thick slices. After loaf is sliced, use desired cookie-cutter to cut out about 6-7 shapes. (Depending on the length of the loaf pan you use, you may use more or less cut outs to cover the length of the pan.) I’d recommend using a cookie-cutter on the smaller side so you can cut out a good amount of shapes – you don’t want to run out of dough!

Once your shapes are cut out, set aside.

Heat oven to 325F and lightly butter and flour the loaf pan a second time!

Pour about a 1/2 inch thick layer of vanilla batter to the loaf pan and then place chocolate loaf cut out shapes across the middle of the pan, leaving no space except a little at each end. I left a little bit of space on the sides, and put some vanilla batter there so the chocolate wouldn’t appear at the end of the loaf when baked.

Then gently spoon in the remanning vanilla batter into the loaf pan, completely covering the chocolate.

Place back into oven for about 70 minutes until lightly brown, and inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Allow cake to cool completely before frosting.
This is the chocolate buttercream frosting I used: https://happinessismadeinthekitchen.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/chocolate-buttercream-frosting/