Blueberry-Raspberry Pound Cake

The concert was awesome! U2 rocked the house. 76,000 people packed into Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium. Loud music, rowdy fans and the smell of beer and cigarettes in the air (and maybe another kind of smoke smell as well). Jeremy figured this one concert brought in around $34 million dollars. And this was the 89th show of the tour. Holy cow! U2 did not disappoint at all. They sang most of their all time hits including: Where The Streets Have No Name, With or Without You, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Beautiful Day, One (my favorite), Mysterious Ways, Elevation, Walk On, I Will Follow, Until The End Of The World, and All I Want Is You, among others.

concert pictures taken with the iphone so not the best quality

We also ate at really great restaurant while in Denver. I took Jeremy to The 9th Door which is a super cool Spanish tapas place with homemade sangria and divine food like pan fried artichoke hearts with lemon aioli drizzle and fried goat cheese in a spiced honey and prosciutto wrapped pears with Manchengo cheese. All in all an awesome place, with brick walls, candles, and live guitar Spanish music. The other highlight was this amazing breakfast place called Snooze. You have to get here early or there is always a very long wait. People do wait though, willingly because it is a unique restaurant. They serve organic coffee flown in fresh twice a week from Guatamala. Also their food is interesting and they encourage you to order half orders, customize the menu, and get a side of anything you want so you can sample to your hearts content. I got a half order of their version of eggs benedict. It was a smaller size sourdough toast topped with super creamy Taleggio cheese, prosciutto, a perfectly poached egg, Hollandaise and balsamic drizzle with fresh arugula on top. I might have also ordered a flight of their pancakes which flavors were: Pineapple upside down pancake with brown sugar, cinnamon syrup and chunks of fresh pineapple, then a red velvet pancake with a perfect cream cheese sauce followed by a lemon blueberry bar pancake. Heaven. Jeremy got a hash with arugula and basil and an egg on top accompanied by a side of cinnamon roll french toast.

our orders at Snooze:

We had many other delectable meals as well, like at Rioja which is located right on Larmier St. and serves an artichoke truffle tortellini to die for. Also a dinner at Ocean Prime which is basically an upscale steak house that focuses on fish but also serves steak. They have great sides a la carte like creamed spinach that tastes like straight up smoked bacon, and truffle mac and cheese. We had king crab legs to start. The waiter said they came form one of the "Deadliest Catch" boats. While there, I noticed the table next to us had a plaque on it that read "reserved for Bono" . I was really excited until the party showed up and Bono was not a part of it. It was three men with plans and paperwork and iphone and laptops. They knew Bono and were affiliated with the U2 concert somehow because they kept talking about it and him. I heard little snippets between conversation.

Amidst all this I got my mid-day mall tropical mojito I told you about. See? My trip was so fun!

Well, since I am just returning, I have a recipe to share that I made a few months back. I decided to wait and blog about it now because I thought it was more a spring food. I decided upon this particular recipe because it uses kirsch as the flavoring instead of vanilla. Kirsch is a cherry flavored liqueur and you can pick it up at any liquor store for a couple bucks. I find that the kirsch really adds to the fruitiness of the cake. This is a beautiful dessert and a fine breakfast the next day. You can even toast the leftover slices in the morning. Toasted pound cake with a bit of butter is insane.

Blueberry-Raspberry Pound Cake

adapted from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

2 cups plus 8 Tbsp. cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

1 2/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups (10 ounces) unsalted butter, diced, at room temperature

2 Tbsp. kirsch

1 cup blueberries, rinsed and dried well

1 cup raspberries, rinsed and dried well

Method:

1. Set an oven rack to the middle position, and preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

2. Butter a standard-sized 9-cup bundt pan and dust it with flour, shaking out any excess. (If your pan in nonstick, you can get away with a simple coating of cooking spray, no flour needed.)

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups plus 6 tablespoons flour, the baking powder and salt.

4. In the bowl of a food processor, blend eggs and sugar until thick and pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add butter and kirsch, and blend until the mixture is fluffy, about 1 minute, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. If the mixture looks curdled, don’t worry. Add dry ingredients and process just to combine. Do not over mix. The batter should be thick and very smooth.

5. In a large bowl, toss berries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. Pour batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly across the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the cake’s center comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

6. Transfer cake to a rack, and cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully invert the cake out of the pan onto the rack, and cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.