Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

My next cookbook is going to have to be a diet cookbook. Or a cookbook of vegetables only. Ugh. Two bites of this cake pretty much sent me over the edge. It is rich, heavy and very, very chocolatey. Don’t even try to eat it without milk. Consider yourself warned.

This is a chocolate sour cream cake topped with a chocolate streusel. Did I mention there was some chocolate in it? I actually found the streusel to be over the top and ended up picking most of it off on the square I ate. I actually think the toasted coconut streusel (from the pineapple squares recipe) would be a much better choice here. The combination of the chocolate streusel and the chocolate cake was just too much for me.

On to the cake. It is an easy recipe to whip up; no complaints there. The cake batter starts out by melting butter and unsweetened chocolate together. Then, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, and vanilla are slowly added to whipped eggs, along with the butter/chocolate mixture. The dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, etc) are added alternately with sour cream. The batter is topped off with the streusel and the whole thing bakes for about 30 minutes.

The finished cake does have a heavy tang from the sour cream, which some people may not like. Cutting down the sour cream or replacing some of it with yogurt could help. Some of my tasters thought the cake was a little dry, but that’s likely because I might have overcooked it. Some of my tasters also thought they were eating brownies, but that’s a whole other story.

Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

These were good. Not spectacular, but darn tasty. The cake was moist and tender, but I would have liked more of a pineapple flavor. The coconut streusel is the standout here. It added just the right crunch and kept the cake from being ordinary and a bit boring.

The streusel recipe combines toasted coconut with flour, powdered sugar, melted butter and orange and lemon peel. The cake is a basic sour cream coffee cake recipe, with crushed pineapple added. True to form, Walter throws in some extra steps, such as taking 5 minutes to add 2/3 of a cup of sugar to the butter while it is being beaten and whipping egg whites which get folded into the batter at the end. I also ended up dirtying just about every bowl I have, including my food processor (to finely chop the crushed pineapple), my stand mixer (to mix the batter) and my handheld mixer (to whip the egg whites).

Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

So far, this has been my favorite pound cake that I’ve baked out of Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. The cake was dense and moist, and the cream cheese perfectly complimented the lemon. In fact, I think it could have used more cream cheese. I’m going to play around with this recipe’s ingredients and methods; the directions seemed overly complicated and I think they can be streamlined. But this cake has a lot of promise . . .

And that’s a pattern I’m beginning to see with Walter’s recipes. Her directions are very specific (which is good), but she doesn’t tell you why she wants you to do things a certain way (which is annoying, for me). For example, when adding sugar to the cream cheese, Walter tells you to add it a tablespoon at a time, taking five or so minutes. Why? What happens if you just dump it all in?

Not that I’ve done that.

Most experienced bakers will probably understand why she wants you to do things a certain way, but not novice bakers. And even though I consider myself to be an experienced baker, there have been a couple of times I was left scratching my head in puzzlement over Walter’s directions.

Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter.

This was my second attempt at a pound cake from Walter’s book. Obviously, it came out of the pan easier than the last one. It also tasted better than the last one, but that was because of the crust.

With this recipe, after generously buttering the pan, you press walnut pieces up the sides. As the cake bakes, the nuts toast up and merge with the batter to form a crust.

The cake itself? Meh. It was all right. I liked the texture better than the last one. This cake is a more traditional pound cake that includes a bit of sour cream and orange zest in the batter. I like using lemon and lime zest, but I find orange zest tends to make things taste medicinal. Overall, this isn’t a pound cake that I’d go out of my way to make again.

Currently baking from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter

I hate my nonstick bundt pan. No matter how carefully I grease and flour it, just about everything sticks, including, as you can see, this cake from my next book, Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this recipe. I have lots of pound cake recipes, but none that call for whipped cream instead of butter. The batter starts off by whipping eggs for five minutes and then slowly adding sugar. Vanilla, a small bit of flour and baking powder are carefully incorporated, followed by cream that has been whipped to firm peaks.

The flavor of the cake was nice, but I didn’t care much for the texture. Even though it was tender, the texture was very airy, almost like an angel food cake. I think it might be good with some fresh fruit, but on its own, I wasn’t very impressed with this cake.