Saint Patrick's Day Chocolate Pound Cake Pistachio Trifle

What to do when your Saint Patrick's Day cake doesn't turn out as planned? Trifle it! My delicious dreams of chocolate pound cake strips filled with pistachio cream and topped with a special green buttercream frosting were dashed when my cake was undercooked in the center, just at the top where it cracked. The rest was great.

My grandmother whipped out perfect buttery, rich, vanilla laden pound cakes without a fancy Kitchen Aid mixer for years. I have made her recipe many times with no problems, until recently. I could blame it on the oven but other cakes turn out fine. Once I got a new mixer I thought that would solve the problem. I could be facing worse issues than baking more pound cakes though, so no complaining.

Even with a list of simple ingredients, the perfect pound cake can still be tough to accomplish. Using powdered sugar, like in my grandmother's, produces different results than granulated sugar, which is found in most recipes. The dense structure is not cooperative with much added liquid. Then there's loaf pan versus bundt versus tube pan. Each conducts heat in a distinct way. Conclusion - Practice practice practice.

I believe my grandmother's basic pound cake is the best but I've yet to discover its chocolate equivalant. I do enjoy tweaking and experimenting so this isn't the end of this cake's story. It's full of that signature buttery flavor that pound cake is famous for, along with a deep chocolate melt-in-your-mouth decadence!   You break a slice and the texture is dense and solid, moist, not spongy. Definitely worth pursuing.

 

Now for our trifle...