How to Make Giada's Ricotta Orange Pound Cake | Food Network

The first thing I want to do for my pound cake is start by macerating my strawberries. So I have one pint of hulled strawberries and what I want to do is just quarter them. This is going to be really good on top of the pound cake. We're just going to add some sugar to them and the sugar is not only going to make the strawberry sweet but it's going to create a little bit of juice and so the pound cake will absorb that and it'll be so yummy. And when I have these supper clubs with my girlfriends it's really fun because at the end you know how girls can be a little finicky and they don't want to eat dessert but they see the pound cake then they see the strawberries on top and it's kind of like the guilty pleasure's okay because there's a little bit of fruit and it's so colorful. So now we'll put them back into the bowl and we're also going to add here a tablespoon of sugar just like that and as they sit they'll slowly soften. So while those macerate I can start on the pound cake, the yummy part. So we're going to add one and a half cups of cake flour and you want to make sure that when you're baking that you really measure out your ingredients because the cake won't come out right if you don't measure all of the ingredients perfectly. So you see you just want to use your finger to level off the cake flour. One and a half cups of cake flour and then we're going to add two and a half teaspoons of baking powder. You want to again make sure you measure it all together and we're also going to add one teaspoon of salt and I just like to use plain old salt, not kosher salt or sea salt and then you just want to give it a quick little mix. Time to get started on the wet ingredients. So one and a half sticks of sweet softened butter. Now you want to make sure it's at room temperature or even softer so that way when you mix it all together you get this fluffy batter. I'm going to add the ricotta cheese. I know you're probably thinking ricotta cheese in pound cake? Yeah it's really good. It makes the pound cake cheesy and fluffy. It's sort of my Italian touch on classic pound cake. So one and a half cups of regular whole milk ricotta and one and a half cups of sugar. You need the sugar. So again level it off. You don't want it to be too sweet. Now I want to cream it all together. Okay now that it's all mixed together and fluffy I'm ready to add the eggs. Again room temperature. Make sure all of the ingredients are at room temperature. It just gives you a better fluffier batter and you just want to mix it one egg at a time. So now let's add the flavorings. One teaspoon of vanilla extract and we're also going to add orange zest. Now I told you we're going to add orange zest because it gives it a nice sort of light aroma and flavor to it and I tell you when you bite into it it just lightens up the pound cake. And amaretto liqueur. It's a sweet almond liqueur Italian and we're going to add two tablespoons and again a richness, a yummy flavor, an Italian touch and I love almond flavored desserts. And let's give this a quick little mix. A classic Italian mixture. Okay dry ingredients. Slowly mixing it all but you don't want to over mix it either. So as soon as you that the flour disappears add some more. Alrighty the batter is done. Now it's time to pour it into my buttered loaf pan. Okay so just spread the top and that's it. We're going to bake this at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Then once it's cooled I'm going to dust the top with some powdered sugar. A buttery pound cake with hints of orange and almonds topped with a sweet strawberry sauce.