Working out the details - Giada's Raspberry Pound Cake with Vin Santo Cream

With Gourmet Club starting up, my board and I needed to get together and go over details, come up with our new by-laws and start planning for our 'Welcome Coffee' where we sign up new and returning members for the club.

I decided that I wanted to serve my girls Giada's Raspberry Pound Cake with Vin Santo Cream as a little treat to gnaw on while we knocked out all the details.

Raspberry Pound Cake with Vin Santo Cream

                    For Pound Cake:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the loaf pan
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons orange zest (from 1 medium orange)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing loaf pan
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (10-ounce) bag sweetened, frozen raspberries, thawed and drained

Set an oven rack in the lower 1/3 of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 by 5 by3-inch loaf pan.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, orange zest, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together the sugar and butter until blended, about 30 seconds. With the machine running, add the eggs 1 at a time. Add the vanilla extract. Add the dry ingredients, a small amount at a time, until just incorporated. Using a rubber spatula, fold the drained raspberries evenly into the batter.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. (Cake may deflate in the center during cooling)

Vin Santo Cream

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons Vin Santo wine or Moscato wine

In a large bowl, beat the cream until it holds soft peaks.
Add the vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and Vin Santo. Continue to beat mixture until cream holds stiff peaks.

Transfer the pound cake to a serving platter. Slice and serve with the Vin Santo Cream.

I could not find any Vin Santo wine, so I used a Barefoot Moscato wine, which worked very nicely with the cream. The ONLY issue I had with the whole pound cake was the raspberry seeds. I'm sure there's got to be frozen, seeded raspberries out there somewhere. Right?  But other than that, I really enjoyed this pound cake. The Mascato based cream took it to a higher, richer level so I wouldn't skip that.

 If you notice in the pic, I had a little 'sinkage' on the top of the loaf. But was rest assured by Giada's website that this was totally normal and not to worry!

The Gourmet girls all seemed to enjoy it and I know my husband really did as well since there were no leftovers for later.


(On a side note: I really need to stop using my iPhone to take pictures! Especially since it's a - GASP - 3G! Horrible quality. I apologize!)