Kaye Barley's Bittersweet Chocolate Walnut Pound Cake

The other day was Bittersweet Chocolate Day, and I posted one of my favorite Bittersweet Chocolate Bundt Cake recipes. My friend Kaye Barley, who blogs at Meanderings and Muses about mystery and crime fiction, immediately sent me her own favorite recipe for a bittersweet cake: Chocolate Walnut Pound Cake. I like this recipe, and I can't wait to try it. Sadly no photos available of this cake. It doesn't sit around for long. So instead, I'm posting a photo of her trusted companion Harley who doesn't eat chocolate, I hope!

Bittersweet Chocolate Walnut Pound Cake

Ingredients:
sifted cocoa for preparing the baking pan
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 2/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup vanilla yogurt, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
2 3-oz. bars bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 325.
Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. Dust with sifted cocoa (instead of flour).
Cream the butter with an electric mixer. Add the sugar gradually and continue to beat for 5 minutes
Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, soda and salt. Alternately add the dry ingredients and the vanilla yogurt to the batter, ending with the flour. Mix in the vanilla extract, nuts and chopped chocolate.
Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake at 325 for approximately 1 hour and 10-15 minutes, being EXTRA careful not to overcook (mine only took an hour).
Let the finished cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then turn cake onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

About Kaye Barley: Meanderings and Muses: where we're building a community of friends sharing thoughts and conversations about anything and everything. Where a conversation might last a day, a week, or a month. And then pop back up again for another go round. Welcome! Meander along with us, enjoy your stay, and come back often. The genesis for Meanderings and Muses was a love of books; mystery and crime fiction in particular. While we'll ramble down a lot of different paths, our heart and soul will remain quite firmly planted in the mystery community. Honey. Southern women do not forget their roots.