Orange Pound Cake

I found this recipe through my many wanderings of food blogs via StumbleUpon - definitely my weakness. :) You can set your "stumbling" (a.k.a. browsing) topics, and there's a fun little button that says "STUMBLE", and up pops random websites that may or may not intrigue you! The Hungry Mouse blog is a fun one, and it's come up several times in my "stumbling."

I didn't make this recipe recently - I actually made it back with my Blueberry Lemon Glazed Scones for the retreat with my internship this past summer. This was more of a hit than the scones were, actually, so I'm surprised I forgot to post this until now! So here you go - now I want to make it again!

Orange Pound Cake

Cake
13 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened to room temp + more for greasing the pan
3 Tbsp. milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups cake flour*
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. grated orange zest (1 large orange should be enough)

Glaze
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbls. triple sec, or other orange liqueur

*PLEASE use cake flour - it makes the texture of this pound cake more fine, just like pound cake should be. But you CAN substitute all-purpose flour if you don't already have some cake flour. I admit, this was one of the first recipes I bought cake flour for, and I've used it several times since!

Yields 1 loaf

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a glass loaf pan and set aside. Zest your orange - be careful to avoid the white layer beneath the top, orange layer. Whisk together your eggs, milk, vanilla in a bowl. Put flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl, the bowl of your standmixer, whatever you have. Toss in the orange zest and mix on low until zest is incorporated. Cut the butter into tablespoons, and with mixer on low, toss in one piece of butter at a time, and mix until it's completely incorporated. Repeat until all butter is incorporated - your dough should go from looking like small crumbs, to a more moistened mass. Now, slowly pour in the egg/milk mixture, with mixer on low. Mix until all is added, and batter *just* comes together. (It will still be a little "mealy" looking - DON'T overmix. Long story short - gluten. too much mixing. tough cake. bleh.) Pour batter into your pan, and bake for 55-60 minutes. Start checking at 30 minutes, and cover edges with foil if it looks like it's browning too fast.

Glaze: Put sugar, orange juice, and orange liqueur in 1 quart, heavy-bottomed pot. Over medium-high heat, whisk until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to boil, mixing often. Watch closely - it will boil over if you get distracted. :) Oops... Boil until reduced by about half - until it's thick and syrupy. Yum.

Release cake carefully from the pan, and set on cooling rack (with several paper towels underneath). Poke holes in the cake (just like the Rum Cake technique!) with a fork, skewer, thin sharp knife, so the glaze can sink into the cake. Pour the glaze on the still-warm cake, or brush on with a basting brush. Go slow, so the glaze has time to sink into the holes. Cool cake to room temperature before slicing.

Again, [imagine yummy-looking photo here]. I didn't take one. But you can look here at The Hungry Mouse's version.