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Kim
If you’re not a lover of rich chocolate desserts, there’s a good chance your sweet tooth craves the decadent flavors of buttery pound cake or fluffy angel food. As someone who leans toward desserts that are more savory than sugary, I’m a fan of treats like crème brûlée and cream cheese bars, so when a cream cheese-based pound cake called Philly Fluff started showing up on my social media feeds, I was intrigued.
Philly Fluff sounds like a cheesesteak topping or, at the very least, a dessert straight from the City of Brotherly Love. But Philly Fluff actually has nothing to do with the state of Pennsylvania and everything to do with Philadelphia Cream Cheese, the cake’s main ingredient. TikToker @bossladykitchenoc shared her own video about Philly Fluff, explaining, “This isn’t called Philly Fluff Cake because of Philadelphia, it’s because of the cream cheese … it actually originated in a famous bakery in New York.”
How to Make Philly Fluff Cake
Terri Peters
But what’s in Philly Fluff? The ingredients are surprisingly simple: cream cheese, butter, shortening, flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. I tried making a Philly Fluff Cake recipe in my own kitchen and found it to be a pretty simple dessert to whip up and toss into the oven.
I started by combining softened, room-temperature butter, cream cheese, and shortening in a bowl and mixing with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. After combining flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl, I mixed the dry ingredients into the fluffy wet ones and combined with my mixer.
Next, it was time to mix in the eggs and sugar. I started by adding one egg and beating it into the mixture, followed by a 1/2 cup of sugar. Next, I added another egg, then another 1/2 cup of sugar, before beating in the third and final egg. After mixing in some vanilla extract, I poured the fluffy batter into a greased bundt pan and let it bake at 350 degrees F for about 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cake came out clean.
How to Serve Philly Fluff Cake
Terri Peters
Once my golden brown Philly Fluff Cake had cooled, I turned it upside down on a plate to release it from its pan, then dusted the top with lots of powdered sugar. The result was a light and fluffy cake that seemed somewhere between pound cake and angel food cake and tasted buttery, sweet, and light.
One of the most famous spots to buy Philly Fluff is Natale’s Summit Bakery, a family-owned business in New Jersey that has been baking since 1938. Natale’s describes their original Philly Fluff as “a decadent pound cake made with Philadelphia Cream Cheese.” And, Natale’s gets creative with its Philly Fluffs, offering varieties like blueberry, apple, and chocolate to guests in addition to the standard recipe.
I can see Philly Fluff becoming a regular dessert item in my home, especially since it’s easy to whip up and feels like an incredibly light and airy dessert that isn’t too rich. Served with some strawberries and whipped cream or baked with add-ins like chocolate chips or blueberries, the possibilities with this light-and-fluffy cake truly seem endless.
Even better, Philly Fluff isn’t the only dessert that utilizes delicious cream cheese for some decadent flavor. From Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting to Cherry Cream Cheese Pie, there are tons of desserts out there for cream cheese lovers. Still, if you’re looking for something light that falls into the same category as pound cake or angel food cake, Philly Fluff is worth whipping up, so get those cream cheese blocks ready.
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