Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Berries and Crème Fresh

The crème fresh takes 24-36 hours to set up. If you want to serve it with the pound cake than plan time accordingly. You can always substitute sour cream if you don’t want to go to the effort. I know it sounds weird to put sour cream on a cake, but the contrast of the sweet cake, liqueur, and sour cream is wonderful.

Ingedients

Cake ingredients
Butter to grease the pan
granulated sugar to dust the pan and sweeten the berries
1/2 C unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 C brown sugar
4 large eggs
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp allspice
2 C unbleached flour
3 Tbsp. sour cream
1/2 C toasted almonds, finely ground
4 C mixed fresh berries
1/4 C raspberry or blackberry liqueur
1 C pasteurized whipping cream, NOT ultra-pasteurized
1 Tbsp. buttermilk

Directions
Crème Fresh
1. In a container with a lid, combine whipping cream and buttermilk. Cover and shake for 30 seconds. Store at room temperature until thickened. 24-36 hours. Then refrigerate. This will keep in the refrigerator for 5-7 days

Cake and Berries
1. Wash berries and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, butter a 9″ loaf pan. Sprinkle bottom and sides lightly with sugar, shake out excess.
3. With an electric mixer, cream butter until smooth. Add brown sugar gradually and beat until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one.
4. Beat in salt, vanilla, lemon zest and allspice. On lowest speed, add in 1 C of flour and beat just until blended. Add sour cream and beat to blend. Add remaining flour and almonds, beating just until blended. The batter will be thick and sticky,
5. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake for 1 1/4 hour or until top is firm and toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 2 minutes, remove from pan and cool right-side up.
6. In a medium bowl, combine berries and liqueur. Add sugar if the berries are not sweet enough. Let berry mixture sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.
7. Slice pound cake thin slices and serve with berries on top or on the side. Serve with a pitcher of cold crème fresh.