Amongst Giants

Last night was the TnT Management/Office Holiday Party and it's a potluck.... Bryan's been so busy with work that I offered to make something. After offering, I realized that bringing food to a catering company holiday party is no small deal. It must taste great! It must be presented well! It must hold well! You must make enough for everyone and not run out! Or... just make a dessert and hopefully after a few celebratory glasses of champagne, no one will judge the dessert. Luckily, with this crew, they're not too judgmental. It still feels like a big deal to me, though!

Last year, I made the Hamilton Family Cream Cheese Pound Cake. It was a hit. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I went with that again this year. I have to admit that it felt pretty good to walk in with the pound cake and hear "Oh yeah! You brought that again!" It's a winner.

This pound cake is awesome and easy. Typically, we serve it with apricot preserves mixed with amaretto (~1/4 c + 1T) on top of a small dob of mascarpone cheese and sprinkled with sliced almonds. Mmmmm. That's what I decided to do again this year. However, this pound cake is awesome by itself, with powdered sugar, or whatever topping you fancy. Enjoy!

Hamilton Cream Cheese Pound Cake

3 sticks unsalted butter

1 8oz cream cheese

3 cups sugar

6 eggs

3 cups self-rising flour or cake flour

1 T vanilla

- Preheat oven to 325. Grease bundt cake pan (or tube pan or whatever dish you want)

- Cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy

- Mix in sugar until well mixed

- Add flour and eggs, alternately, beginning and ending with flour (this may or may not be an important rule to follow, but it's easy enough: 1 c flour/3 eggs/1c flour/3 eggs/1c flour)

- Stir in vanilla

- Bake ~1 hour and 15 minutes or until top is crusty and toothpick comes out pretty clean... However, if you undercook it, your mother-in-law will like it better :-)