Irish Pound Cake

For dessert on St. Patrick's Day, I made this pound cake. I'm not sure how authentically Irish it is, but it sure was delicious! I got the recipe from All Recipes and it is a pound cake in the true sense of the word. It's loaded with sugar, butter, cream cheese and refined flour - yikes! But for a special treat one day of the year, this cake hits the spot! Yummy! I topped mine with cut strawberries and a little plain yogurt with brown sugar mixed in. If you're serving this to your kids, like I did, don't worry about the whiskey - it imparts a wonderful flavor, but the alcohol pretty much gets cooked out. This was a nice end to our St. Patrick's Day menu, and it's a dessert that is fitting for a party. **I couldn't locate mace, so I used freshly grated nutmeg, being sure to grate the outer shell of the nutmeg, as I hear that is what mace actually is in the first place!**

Irish Pound Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
6 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups self-rising flour
1/8 teaspoon ground mace (or freshly grated nutmeg)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (1.5 fluid ounce) jigger Irish whiskey

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a tube pan.

2. Beat the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the sugar until well blended. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Beat in the 2 tablespoons flour with the last egg. Stir in the remaining 2 cups flour until just combined; stir in the mac, vanilla, and whiskey. Pour into the prepared tube pan.

3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.