Irish Cream Pound Cake

Today, I made a pound cake. And it was delicious. I have the husband stamp of approval. Plus, I am extremely proud of myself for not over-baking it for once and drying it out. Woo-hoo!

The pound cake I made is flavored with Irish cream extract (non-alcoholic). This is one if the extracts I bought a while ago from Spicebarn.com. (Let me tell you, their stuff really comes in handy when you want to change the flavors of things!! I love having some of their "different" extracts in the house!)

My recipe was actually inspired by this Almond Pound Cake recipe that came in a free issue of Family Circle magazine, the July issue. Don't get me wrong - the almond pound cake looked delicious, but I decided to just use different flavoring. Plus, I wasn't sure if I HAD almond extract in the house!!

Setting up the batter was pretty easy, took about 20 minutes, as stated. Well, maybe a little longer for me because I didn't take any butter out to soften first, and I had to wait to do that after I decided to bake. But if you plan ahead, well, 20 minutes and you are good.

I only made half the recipe (but I am going to post the full version), so I baked it for 40 minutes instead of an hour and it was just fine.

The icing added a delicious extra touch of an Irish cream taste and was also very easy to make. The original recipe had toasted almonds topping the icing but I didn't do that - I used sugar pearls. So check out the original recipe if you want to see the garnish.

This cake is perfect for summer BBQ's or picnics!!

Ingredients: (this is using Irish Cream extract, either click the link above or just substitute almond or anything else you want instead).

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon Irish cream extract

For Icing:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon Irish Cream extract
sugar pearls to scatter on top

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Cake:

In medium-size bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Add sugar and beat until light-colored, about 2 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. On low speed, beat in half the flour mixture.

Scrape down side of bowl and beat in milk. Add remaining flour mixture and the almond extract and beat until smooth. Spread into prepared pan.

Bake cake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour, 5 minutes or until crowned and set. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert to remove and cool upright on rack.


Topping:

In medium-size bowl, combine confectioners' sugar, 4 teaspoons water and the Irish cream. Whisk until smooth.

Spread over cooled cake and top with sugar pearls.

Let icing dry at least 15 minutes before slicing.