I saw the Easter bunny!

On Saturday as we left our niece's Easter themed birthday party I saw the cutest bunny by our back tire. I decided it must be the Easter bunny, so I have been very excited about that. Sunday I got up and made the pound cake that I was supposed to make Saturday morning, when I was apparently too busy sleeping to do anything. This was my dessert contribution to our Easter dinner with Josh's mom and family, with an accompanying strawberry whipped cream. This was a pretty simple recipe and I will definitely make it again.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Recipe from Martha Stewart; Makes 2 loaf cakes
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 bar (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
Non-stick cooking spray

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees;. With an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar; beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. With mixer on low, add flour and salt in two additions, beating until just combined.
• Generously coat two 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-by-2 1/2-inch loaf pans (1 1/2 quarts each) with cooking spray; immediately pour in batter (pan will seem full). Tap pans on work surface to eliminate any large air bubbles.
• Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out almost clean, 60 to 75 minutes (if the tops begin to brown too quickly, tent with aluminum foil).
• Cool 10 minutes in the pan. Turn out the cakes; cool completely, with top sides up, on a wire rack.

My notes: As per usual I halved this recipe, since I really only needed one cake. I also used nuefchatel cheese, which has 1/3 less fat than regular cream cheese. Everything went as described, but as I was also making the strawberry whipped cream and working on the easy-way-out version of my potato casserole I didn't check the cake as often as I should have. It definitely browned quickly and I was a bit late in getting it tented. This resulted in dark sides and top edges when I removed it from the pan. To make it look prettier I trimmed the sides of the cake, and since that made it look a little bit awkward, I went ahead and sliced it as you see in the picture. This worked out well- big slices of the creamy white cake were very appealing, and it was all ready to go at dessert time.

I will have a further report on Easter dinner, as soon as I snag a pic that our niece, Amber, took of my dinner plate, ha.