Maple Buttermilk Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 3 sticks (339g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 ¾ cups (350g) brown sugar We used light brown sugar. (If not using a digital scale, make sure to pack the brown sugar into your measuring cups.)
• 1 cup (200g) white sugar
• 5 large eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place them in a bowl of warm water.)
• 3 cups (342g) cake flour
• 1 teaspoon (4g) baking powder
• ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
• 1 cup (235g) Buttermilk (We use whole buttermilk rather than low fat)
• ½ cup maple syrup (we used pure dark maple syrup)
• 2 teaspoons (8g) maple extract (optional)
• 1 teaspoon (4)g vanilla extract

Caramel Icing

• ½ stick (57g) unsalted butter
• 1 cup (217g) light brown sugar (packed into measuring cup)
• ½ cup (126g) heavy cream
• ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
• 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
• 1 Tablespoon (18g) light corn syrup

Topping

• Crushed Pecans, optional

Direction

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.Grease and flour a tube pan.
2. In a medium  bowl whisk the cake flour, baking powder and salt to combine, set aside for later
3. Add the butter to the bowl of your mixer and mix until smooth.  Gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture has lightened in color and is fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time mixing, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk is blended.
5. In a medium sized bowl or measuring cup, combine the maple syrup, buttermilk, maple extract, and vanilla extract. Set aside.
6. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk mixture to the mixture of butter, sugar and eggs.  Begin and end with the dry ingredients.  We like to do three additions of dry and two additions of wet. Mix just until incorporated.
7. Pour or scoop the maple pound cake batter into the prepared tube pan or bundt pan. This cake recipe makes about 8.5 cups of batter. We used a tube pan with 12 cups baking capacity. If using a smaller bundt pan or tube pan, make sure that you have a least 1 ¼ inch from the top of the batter to the top edge of the pan. (Don’t fill pan more than ¾ full).
8. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5 minutes.  Check your cake at about 50 minutes using a long wooden skewer or a toothpick to determine doneness.  Bake until the toothpick  comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.  
9. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.  
10. Allow the cake to cool before adding the caramel icing.

Caramel Icing

1. Using a medium size saucepan (deep enough to prevent boil over) melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Add the brown sugar and the remaining ingredients and heat on medium high heat.
3. Stir to blend, try to keep mixture off the sides of the pan. Once the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to low.
4. Simmer for 6 minutes, checking often to make sure that it is not going to boil over. It should still be bubbling. After 6 minutes, remove from heat.
5. Keep in mind that the caramel with thicken up a bit as it cools. You can pour it into a long glass casserole dish if you want it to cool more quickly. We often refrigerate to cool it off as well.
6. Makes about 1 cup caramel sauce. It can be kept in the refrigerator in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.

Decorating the Cake

1. Once the cake and caramel have cooled, you can spoon the caramel over the top of the cake. We topped ours with crushed pecans and drizzled with a bit more caramel.