Today is World Baking Day, the perfect excuse to try this amazing Chocolate Dipped Pound cake! Is it a cake? Is it a candy? It’s kind of both, and kind of neither, and entirely, 100% awesome.
This recipe starts with homemade cream cheese pound cake, swirled with ribbons of semi-sweet chocolate before baking. After the cake is baked, you pour on an insane amount of orange-scented syrup. You’ll think it’s too much syrup, and you’ll give my recipe the side-eye while you’re pouring. Have faith. After a good long soak, the cake will make like a sponge and absorb all of the syrup, leaving it with an extra-moist texture and a fabulous punch of orange flavor in every bite.
[Not a fan of chocolate and orange together? No worries! Substitute your favorite liqueur for the orange juice concentrate. I think amaretto, framboise, or frangelico would all be amazing. Or you could keep things simple and just use all water, to give the cake a moist texture without any additional flavoring. Marbled pound cake doesn’t need much accessorizing, anyhow.]
The crowing touch is the final dip in tempered semi-sweet chocolate. The combination of tender, citrus-scented cake in a crisp, dark chocolate shell is amazing. Without the chocolate shell you’ve made a decent sheet cake, but once the pieces are dipped they become a fabulous, elegant two-bite dessert.
They reminded me a bit of cake pops, but—dare I say it?—I liked them much better. They retain the fine texture of cake, without any of the gumminess some cake pops have. Plus, using real chocolate instead of candy coating is always a win in my book.
t is not an exaggeration to say that I could not stop eating these. I found, through dedicated experimentation, that they make a great breakfast, a delicious lunch, and a lovely post-workout snack. None of these options are nutritionally recommended, but I dare you to have a big container of these on your kitchen counter and resist sneaking bites whenever possible. I finally had to give them away because they were way too addicting—and now I’m craving them all over again.
SEE FULL RECIPE AND MORE YUMMY PHOTOS HERE: http://www.sugarhero.com/2013/03/chocolate-dipped-pound-cake/
