Orange Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

It was my sweet mom's birthday last week and I decided she needed a birthday cake. Not a cake covered in creepy colored icing, but a super moist and delicious one. My mom has always loved white cake and I decided this pound cake would be a perfect idea with a twist. Orange extract and chocolate chips make a great addition to this basic cake recipe and has an extra special touch. I adapted this recipe from Paula Deen's pound cake recipe. I added orange and chocolate but also cut back a bit on the sugar. With the chocolate makes it a bit overly sweet, but usually I add a full 3 cups of sugar to this recipe if I'm not adding anything to it.

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
5   eggs
3 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter, plus more for pan
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon orange extract 

1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

First, combine the shortening, butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. No really, you will need a super big bowl in the end. Mix until it is light and fluffy.

Then, Add the eggs in one at a time and mixing well after each egg.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together.

 Add about one third of the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture. Then add about a third of the milk. Continue this pattern, but end with the flour mixture.

 Butter and flour a bundt pan well. At least that's what Paula said would prevent the cake from sticking. She lied this time. My bundt pan works best when you only spray oil in it. Or this is just the lie I tell myself.

 Bake the cake for about 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees or until a cake tester comes out clean

Hopefully your cake will come out of the pan much easier than mine did. If it does not, you can just cut it out of the pan and serve it into slices that way. This is delicious plain or with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!