Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Throw out all your other pound cake recipes; you will never need another one. My friend, Rachel Grice, made this for me when I visited her once. It is in NO WAY good for you, but really, what pound cakes are? I didn't get a picture of this, mainly because it was GONE by the time I started thinking about getting one. I served it with strawberries and Cool Whip (convenience won out today. I love to make real whipped cream* when I have time). David's office is having a potluck breakfast on Friday and they asked me to make another one of these to send. For breakfast. Yeah, it's awesome. And easy. And I did it in my stoneware bundt pan which I had never used before, and it turned out fabulously. Slid right out of the pan with a perfect, golden crust. Love it.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2 sticks softened butter (I do not cook with margarine and I recommend you don't either. It's more expensive, but some things are worth the money. Real butter is one of those things.)
1 8 oz pkg softened cream cheese
1/2 c shortening
3 c sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp butter extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 c self-rising flour

Beat the first three ingredients with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in the sugar, one cup at a time. Beat in six (yep, I said six) eggs, one at a time. Beat in 1 t. vanilla, 1 t. butter extract, and 1 t. almond extract. Combine the two flours and gradually add to the beaten mixture. It will be a thick, stiff batter.

Grease and flour a tube pan or bundt pan. Pour the batter in and bake at 330 degrees (NOT 350 - bake at 330...it will keep the top from getting too brown) for about 1 hour and 20-30 minutes. Cool in pan for about ten minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

*My mom is the one who turned me on to real whipped cream. She pretty much never uses cool whip and taught me all the good tricks (like putting your metal bowl in the freezer for about fifteen minutes prior to beating the cream). It really does taste so much better than cool whip, and doesn't have all the hydrogenated junk that cool whip has, so when you can, make your own whip cream. But when you do have to use cool whip, a tip I learned from Sandra Lee on the Food Network is to add 1 tsp of vanilla to an 8 oz carton of cool whip to give it a homeade taste.