This cake makes for an excellent breakfast… or lunch.. or dinner… or dessert. It’s divine.
I used this recipe, but took the reviewers’ advice and reduced the sugar to 2.5 cups and increased the baking temp to 325 to shorten the baking time to about an hour. See the recipe at the end of this post for a full summary of my tweaks.
Here’s my mise en place.
The first step was to sprinkle the chopped pecans on the bottom of the greased bundt pan.
I then creamed the butter.
Next, I added the sugar and continued to mix.
Next came the eggs and vanilla.
It soon became clear the rest of my ingredients would not fit into the bowl I was working with, so I alternated pouring the wet and dry mix with the sour cream into a larger bowl.
I noticed one commenter on the original recipe said there was so much batter that it was sloshed and bubbled up and over the bundt pan. With this is mind I thought, “I shouldn’t fill the bundt pan and instead make some cupcakes with the excess batter.” But as I poured the batter into the bundt, I guess I got lazy and poured the whole thing into the pan.
For the next hour, I peeked inside the oven in 5-10 minute increments, nervous the cake would rise up and out of the pan. But it didn’t! What it did do, however, was collapse in the center, leaving a hole inside the cake on one side.
Can you see it? What happened there? I poked the inside to ensure the cake was baked and hoped for the best as I let it cool inside the pan for 30 minutes. I had visions of the cake completely collapsing on one side once I flipped it out of the bundt pan. But it all turned out okay.
Phew! It actually looked pretty good and I knew it would look even prettier with the glaze.
I brought this cake up to Connecticut where I spent Memorial Day with my writer’s group. The cake survived the train ride. And more importantly, it was a hit!
| Pecan Sour Cream Pound Cake |
- FOR CAKE
- 1/3 cup chopped pecans
- 3 cups cake flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 2 1/2 cups white sugar
- 6 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream
- FOR GLAZE
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 3 tablespoons orange juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Spray bundt pan with cooking spray.
- Sprinkle chopped pecans on bottom of pan; set aside.
- Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda into a medium bowl; set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and white sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
- Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream.
- Pour batter over pecans in prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Let cool in pan for 30 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
- To prepare the glaze: In a small bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, orange juice and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Drizzle over cake while still warm.
Keep ’em comin’! This one I could consume in one sitting!
Nina brought this cake to my house on Memorial Day weekend. She got off the train with an official white baker’s box but it had a sweet pink ribbon tied around it with a bow on top. As she says, it is good morning, noon and night. We put it in the fridge after we tried it the first evening and we had it for a whole week! It was good as a breakfast sweet, for lunch with a sandwich and, of course, as desert for dinner. My husband liked it with vanilla ice cream and I dribbled a little chocolate sauce on mine.
It’s a perfect “go to” cake for all occassions at all times of day.
Linda
Nina, you are a genius. As I said at the beginning of this venture, if you can talk me into baking a successful cake you are truly intelligent! Well, you did, and the cake is beautiful. Pictures will follow, as soon as the cake cools. I knew I wouldn’t eat my words about you being a great baker/blogger, but I will eat the cake!
Ann