My First Attempt at Chocolate Swirl Pound Cake

I say “attempt,” because for the first time in my life, I used too little chocolate and didn’t achieve the signature swirl. I can’t believe myself. I’m the girl who looks for any excuse to sneak to the pantry at night for chocolate chips. Who loves making chocolate desserts (evidence here, here, and here) and I somehow didn’t use enough chocolate? I’ve been itching to try my hand at Starbucks-like chocolate swirl pound cake since last fall. It’s my favorite breakfast snack at Starbucks. I wanted to use less eggs and butter than their version and came up with this recipe. I think its spot on, it is just missing …chocolate.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 8-ounce container low-fat sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, grated
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Butter or flour your loaf pan or oven-safe dish of choice. Mix softened butter and sugar in large bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda into butter mixture. Beat just until blended. Add sour cream and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add in eggs.

2. Mix grated chocolate and cinnamon in small bowl. Spread half of batter into prepared pan. Spread evenly. Sprinkle half of chocolate mixture over batter. Spread remaining batter over chocolate. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate mixture. Using knife, swirl chocolate mixture into batter.

3. Bake at 350 degrees until tooth pick comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Transfer pan to rack and cool cake 10 minutes. Wrap in foil and store at room temperature.

As I said, this cake was perfect, aside for the mis-estimation of chocolate. The amount I listed should be enough to achieve the swirl and next round, I’m going to melt the chocolate and swirl in the batter rather than sprinkle grated chocolate. It was messy and inconsistent.