Have It and Eat It: Cake

White Chocolate & Fig Pound Cake

C-a-k-e. Four little letters that, when put together, make my heart throb every time they are heard or said. I love cake. Sponge cake; butter cake; chiffon cake; custard cake; angel food cake; devil's food cake; pound cake; génoise; dacquoise; you name it, I love it. Topped with ganache or buttercream or whipped cream or meringue or just a simple dusting of confectioner's sugar all agree with me just fine, thank you. Downy textured cakes and hefty cakes, fudgey-gooey cakes and cakes that crumble all occupy a warm corner of my heart.

This recipe is one I've had my eye on from the Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates cookbook, and it's wonderful. The white chocolate chunks warm in the oven to ooze their cocoa butter into the soul of the cake. The fig seeds offer a marvelous textural crunch. The vanilla-scented crumb is buttery-unctuous, and the whole thing thing comes together in one amazing cake.

Let me warn you; this is a dense cake. My Baby has been putting special emphasis on the word "pound" when he's referring to the pretty ring under the glass dome in the kitchen. It is not dry at all, just dense with goodies, butterfat and cocoa fat. Do not make this cake if light and fluffy are what you're about. There's just no way you'll get light and fluffy from 1 cup of butter, five eggs and a half-pound of white chocolate.

Next time (and there will be a next time), I'll replace the figs with dried cherries, just for fun.

White Chocolate & Fig Pound Cake

Cake

1 cup butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

5 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup milk

8 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

12 ounces dried figs, finely diced (or other dried fruit)

Preheat oven to 350°. Generously butter and flour a 10-inch fluted pan.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla, beating again until well incorporated and fluffy. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Add about half of the flour mixture to the batter, mixing gently until mostly incorporated. Add milk, mix gently, then add remaining flour mixture. Remove from mixer and do the final mixing with a wide rubber spatula by hand. (This method keeps too many gluten strands from forming, rendering the most tender cake.) Mix in white chocolate and figs by hand also.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, until cake edges just begin to pull away from pan and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on rack for about 10 minutes, then invert onto pretty cake plate to cool completely.

Glaze

2 ounces white chocolate, chopped

2 tablespoons cream

In glass dish in microwave, melt together white chocolate and cream in 20 second increments, allowing to sit one minute and then stirring well between each zap. (Any quicker than this, and the mixture is likely to seize. Utilize your patience here. A lack thereof is a certain do-over.) When mixture stirs completely smooth, drizzle atop cooled cake.