Avocado pound cake. How can you read that recipe title and not be immediately intrigued? When I emailed my co-workers that I'd brought avocado pound cake and homemade Twix bars to work, I confess I expected excitement about the Twix and skepticism over the avocado pound cake. Instead, everyone fell for this pound cake. It's like a traditional 1-2-3-4 pound cake (1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 4 eggs), with the avocado replacing some of the butter. It's amazingly tender, not too sweet, not too green, subtly avocado flavored, and perfectly balanced by the addition of cornmeal. Even though there's only a small amount of cornmeal in the recipe relative to the all-purpose flour, it has a tremendous impact on the flavor and crumb. This avocado pound cake is a cross between the best cornbread and the best pound cake I've ever had, and could be enjoyed in either context. I had a hard time limiting myself to two thick slices in one morning.
Joy the Baker is one of only a few early food bloggers who are still going strong today. I found her blog during grad school and always impatiently awaited new posts. Mostly I loved how relate-able her posts were, like when she wrote a letter to her future husband and children about showing them her love through pancakes. So obviously I bought her cookbook, and made those pancakes .... and was disappointed. It was years ago, so I don't remember what happened, only that they were not nearly as good as my papa's pancakes. In hindsight, that's an impossible standard - no one can make pancakes as good as my papa; I can't even make them as good with the same recipe.
I decided it was time to try another recipe from her cookbook, especially given my goal to try three recipes from every cookbook I own. Avocado pound cake was the natural choice, both because I happened to have two ripe avocados that needed to get used, and because Dani had been telling me about an avocado lemon cake from Allrecipes that she really liked. I did modify the original recipe, because 3 cups of sugar seemed like an awful lot, and I'm glad I did. I do wish the Joy the Baker Cookbook included metric weights, because I think most baking errors can be solved through the use of a scale (and proper temperature control). Also, it's difficult to shop for "1 cup plus 2 tablespoons avocado" - I decided I would measure out my avocados first and make any scaling tweaks from there. Luckily, my two avocados yielded almost exactly the right amount and now I've done all the weighing for future reproduce-ability. In spite of these small concerns, this recipe definitely still counts as a keeper.
You whip the eggs a lot more than most dessert recipes call for - a full minute after each addition. Although the recipe contains baking powder and baking soda, the whipping of the eggs into the batter is providing structure and an airy loft to the pound cake (much like whipping in the eggs does for this flourless chocolate cake), so don't rush through this important process.
I thought for sure these cakes would be overdone when I pulled them out of the oven, they looked so brown on top and actually smelled a little like slightly burnt sweet cornbread. But no - the baking time was perfect.
Avocado Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups (270 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (82 g) yellow cornmeal or semolina flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- ¾ cup unsalted butter softened
- 2 ⅓ cups (467 g) sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (230 g) ripe mashed avocado about 2 medium
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ¾ cup buttermilk*
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease then flour two 9x5-inch loaf pans. Set them aside.
- Weigh your mixing bowl and write down its weight (for evenly dividing the batter at the end).
- Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
- Beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.
- Add avocado and beat another 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of the mixing bowl.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beat on medium speed for 1 minute after each addition. Scrape down the bowl.
- Beat in vanilla extract.
- Reduce speed to low, then add half of the flour mixture. Once the flour is just incorporated, add all of the buttermilk. Once buttermilk is just incorporated, finish by adding the rest of the flour mixture. Beat just until combined.
- This recipe makes enough batter to provide 790-820g of batter for each loaf pan. Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans and place in the oven.
- Bake for 42-50 minutes, rotating them 180 degrees after 20 minutes. The cakes are done when well-browned on top, with sides that are beginning to pull away from the pan, and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. If you are using a convection oven, start checking at 42 minutes. If you are using a regular oven, the pound cakes will take closer to 50/55 minutes.
- Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Well-wrapped, this cake will last up to 4 days at room temperature.
Notes
