After the last two heavily chocolatey cakes, time for something a bit different. This cake is nice and fluffy, and would go great with some berries and vanilla ice cream, but also makes a nice breakfast.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• powdered sugar, optional

This doesn’t even say cream cheese on it, the writing in the red is saying it’s like bargain size or something. It was, however, the only thing that seemed like it was possibly cream cheese. Hooray brand recognition!?

Preheat your oven to 300 and grease a 9″ cake pan. It’s possible this would all fit in a 9X5″ bread pan, but it felt risky to try it – if you do, when you bake it put the bread pan on a sheet pan to catch any overflow, and expect baking times to be longer.

Using a stand or hand mixer, beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and beat for 5 minutes. Don’t be tempted to call it mixed after a minute or two, over the five minutes you can see the color gradually lighten as more air is added into the mixture, creating a lighter texture in the finished cake.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, then add the vanilla.

Add the flour in 1/2 cup portions, adding the salt with the first of them.

Transfer to the greased pan and spread evenly.

Bake 55-60 minutes, until the top is browned and the edges of the cake have pulled away from the sides of the pan.

Cool in the pan, and sprinkle a bit of powdered sugar on top, if desired.

Another “go by the picture” item.

If you wanted you could look up a cream cheese frosting to go with it, to use up the other half of your block, but I don’t really think this one needs it. Pretty simple, pretty tasty.

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Pound Cake

• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• powdered sugar, optional

Preheat your oven to 300 and grease a 9″ cake pan.

Using a stand or hand mixer, beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and beat for 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, then add the vanilla. Add the flour in 1/2 cup portions, adding the salt with the first of them. Transfer to the greased pan and spread evenly.

Bake 55-60 minutes, until the top is browned and the edges of the cake have pulled away from the sides of the pan. Cool in the pan, sprinkling the top with powdered sugar if desired.