A simple classic, this really is the best pound cake recipe!
While pound cake has traditionally been made with a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, I’ve made some small adjustments for the best flavor (hello, vanilla extract!). My recipe has a soft, buttery crumb that’s perfectly dense without being at all dry or crumbly and I think you’re really going to like it! Recipe includes a how-to video.
I don’t know where pound cake rates in terms of your favorite cake recipes, but I’ll admit it’s never been a top contender for me. Humble and frosting-less, sure I would eat a slice or two but nobody in my house ever really got excited about pound cake.
Growing up, my mom would always make it as a way to use up her leftover egg yolks after making an angel food cake, AKA my favorite cake, so pound cake has always just been to me what Jon Snow was to Catelyn Stark (the book-version of Cat, I haven’t watched the series but I hear she’s nicer there). Easily overlooked for what I believed was something much better.
Well things have changed (and Jon Snow is my favorite character, anyway), and I hope you won’t make the same mistake that I did of overlooking one of the most classic, best-tasting cakes to ever grace my kitchen.
So, what is so great about this pound cake recipe, anyway?
For starters, it has a tight, dense crumb that’s in stark contrast to the “light and fluffy” cakes that I usually share. This is a heavy cake with a heavy, velvety batter, but there’s nothing dry or crumbly about it. Instead, each bite of this cake is moist and buttery and just melts in your mouth.
Simple as sunrise with just 6 ingredients, flavored with pure vanilla extract and carefully prepared (it’s not difficult to make, but there is some technique involved), this cake is a dream to devour. Let’s go over some of the basics for making this pound cake recipe.
What are the ingredients for pound cake?
Traditionally, pound cake is made with butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. After many, many taste testing sessions I decided to add vanilla extract and salt, as well.
If you’ve read my post on salted vs unsalted butter, you already know that I generally like to use unsalted butter in my recipes and then add salt in order to have the most control over the flavor of my cakes, and a splash of vanilla in the batter was pretty much a no brainer for the best flavor.
Why do they call it pound cake?
This cake was originally made with a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, and so the name pound cake was born. Crazy stuff, huh? 😉
Can I make this recipe using cake flour?
I know somebody is going to ask me this so I wanted to address this here. Generally I engineer all of my recipes to be made with all-purpose flour and this recipe is no different. However, for those of you who like using cake flour, the answer is yes, you can do a straight 1:1 substitute for cake flour.
This pound cake will turn out just as well; slightly softer, a smidge less dense, but still delicious. I played around with different amounts and different substitutions and finally decided that a 1:1 substitution worked best if you absolutely have your heart set on using cake flour. Personally, I just stick to all-purpose.
How can I tell if my pound cake is finished baking?
Because of its thick batter and the sheer volume of batter, it’s going to take over an hour for your pound cake to finish baking, probably an hour and ten to an hour and fifteen minutes. However, for this pound cake to turn out moist and not dry, the most important thing when baking your pound cake is to make sure that you do NOT over-bake it.
I recommend first making sure your oven is not running hot (I keep two oven thermometers in my oven at all times just to make sure my oven display is telling me the truth) and then checking your cake earlier rather than later. I check my cake at one hour and then return it to the oven in about 5-minute increments until it’s finished baking.
To test if it’s finished, the best method is to use a long wooden skewer (like the kind used for shish-kebabs) as this batter is so thick that a toothpick just won’t cut it. Insert the skewer into your pound cake and check it for moist crumbs.
If you have wet batter on your skewer, your cake needs to bake longer, but if there are a few moist crumbs then it’s time to pull that cake out of the oven! The pound cake is going to continue to bake while it cools, so if you pull out a completely clean skewer from your cake, it’s already at risk of being over-baked and dry, so you want to retrieve your cake from the oven before it hits that point.
Since I mentioned my mom’s recipe earlier, I think that I should mention that this actually isn’t her pound cake recipe, but it will use up egg yolks just as well (with over a dozen hens, using up eggs was always a challenge in our household). Hers strays a bit further from the traditional guidelines that I was trying to adhere to and is technically a “German Gold Pound Cake Recipe” and I’ll probably share that one in time (it’s truly delicious, I overlooked it in the past purely out of misguided prejudice).
Enjoy!
How to Make Pound Cake (The Best Pound Cake Recipe)
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The Best Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter softened (455g)
- 3 ½ cups granulated sugar (700g)
- 6 large whole eggs¹
- 6 large egg yolks¹ (these 6 egg yolks are in addition to the 6 whole eggs listed above).
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour² (438g)
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F (175C) and generously grease (with shortening) and flour a 10 inch tube pan or 12 cup bundt pan. Shake out excess flour and set aside.
- Place your butter in a large bowl (this recipe makes a lot of batter! I recommend using a stand mixer if you have one) and use an electric mixer to beat the butter until it is creamy and smooth.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the sugar. Beat until the ingredients are well combined and light and fluffy (about 1-2 minutes).
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, combine your eggs, additional egg yolks, vanilla extract, and salt.
- Use a fork to lightly beat the eggs and yolks until all egg yolks are broken up and salt and vanilla are incorporated.
- With mixer on low speed, slowly pour egg mixture into your batter, allowing it to gradually become incorporated (don't pour all the egg mixture in at once, if you can't manage a steady stream then add the egg mixture in about 6 parts, allowing each part to become well incorporated before adding more). Once all of the egg mixture is incorporated, pause to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, then increase speed to medium-high and beat for another 1-2 minutes.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually, about 1/4 cup at a time, add flour to the batter until all has been added.
- Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and stir again on medium speed until well-combined and beat for another minute.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared tube pan, use a spatula to smooth the surface of the batter.
- Transfer to 350F (175C) oven and bake for an hour and ten to an hour and fifteen minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the thickest part of the cake comes out clean or ideally with a few moist crumbs (do NOT over-bake this cake or it will be dry)
- Allow cake to cool for at least 20 minutes then run a knife around the sides of the tube pan and the center.
- Carefully invert pound cake onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Annie says
Hi I’m wondering if an 11″x 11″ square pan will be too big for this.
Sam says
Hi Annie! You may actually end up with slightly more batter than the 11″ pan holds. Make sure to not overfill it. 🙂
Lenora Banks says
I have made your pound cake 4x and your biscuit 3x next I am going to try cheesecake, and carrot cake I want to thank you for sharing your recipe
Sam says
That is a lot of baking! I am so glad you have enjoyed everything so much, Lenora! I hope you love the cheesecake and carrot cake just as much. 🙂
Nicole says
Have you tested this out in a loaf pan? If so, what’s the baking time or any other changes?
Sam says
Hi Nicole! I have had many others report success using loaf pans. I believe you will need 2 of them but I am not sure of a bake time for it.
Diane says
Hi. I’ve made this 4 times now and the top sunk in each time. I finally lowered the temp to 300° in a convection oven for 1’20”. Turned out nice.
Sam says
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Diane! 🙂
Jason says
What size of a tube pan do you use? I need to buy one and this recipe is a good one to base my needs off of. I actually did bake a half batch, using a makeshift tube pan. I took a Fat Daddios 8 inch pan and wrapped a pint mason jar with parchment. I then cut a hole in my parchment round and pushed it down over the jar.
It worked okay, but the part on the inside didn’t brown up like the rest and was slightly more moist than I wanted. Still delicious, though (great recipe!) But I plan on making a full batch next time and having the proper pan.
Sam says
Hi Jason! I actually link to 2 different pans you can use in the recipe card. 🙂
Jason says
Thanks! Somehow I missed it in that part and was looking for the size in the instruction steps.
Elnita says
Thanks for sharing this recipe! My family loves this cake and I make it at least once a month. It is perfect for my husband who loves cake without icing. My grandmother was a master cake maker and this pound cake is comparable! I have a request to make this cake with glaze or cream cheese icing. Any suggestions?
Sam says
Hi Elnita! I would recommend the glaze I use on my bundt cake. 🙂
Emma says
I’ve made this pound cake now four or five times (there is one in the oven right now!). I usually turn to this when the chooks have given me more eggs then I can keep up with. I always get a crunchy thick crust, not sure if it is supposed to. Tried having the oven lower but it didn’t cook in the middle. Not that that is an issue, the crust is lovely against the dense moist cake. I’ve taken to puting a lemon glaze on top. Everyone at work LOVES this cake! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Sam says
Hi Emma! I am so glad you enjoy the cake so much! It should have a slight crust to it but it shouldn’t be too thick. 🙂
Emma says
Well it is a real crust. Like a biscuit on the bottom. Suggestion on a fixer? Lower and slower???
Sam says
I wonder if your oven is running a little hotter than it says it is. If not maybe it just needed to come out of the oven a little bit sooner. 🙂
Elby says
Delicious cake—my husband’s been asking me to make one for him for ages. It did rise more than I thought and overflowed my Bundt pan, so I’ll try the 2 loaf pans next time. Also, I found it perfect and my husband wanted it a bit less sweet, so I’ll try with 1/3 less sugar next time and see if it doesn’t affect the composition. Thank you!
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Elby! 🙂
Lee says
Hello. Do you turn on the bottom heating element only to bake this cake or do you turn on both of the top and bottom heating element? This recipe looks nice! 🙂
Sam says
Hi Lee! I use the bake setting on my oven which cooks from both top and bottom for even baking. 🙂
Katie says
Can I do this with an 8in Bundt pan?
Sam says
Hi Katie! You can, but the pan won’t hold all of the batter. Make sure to not overfill it. 🙂
:) says
Hi, question if we wanted to adjust this recipe for a smaller cake. For example 1/2 or 1/3 in size. Do you adjust the baking time or temperature or does it stay the same?
Sam says
It really depends on what kind of pan you are going to bake it in. If you bake it in the same type of pan you will definitely need to bake it for less time. 🙂
Stacia says
I just halved this and it baked for almost the full time. I started checking it at 45 minutes, but it took an hour in a bundt pan. 🙂
Alabama Baker :) says
Can I cut this recipe in half to make 1 in a loaf pan?
Sam says
That should work fine. I have had others report it fills 2 loaf pans. 🙂
Veronica M says
I made this pound cake and it was excellent. I’m curious what I would need to add to this recipe to make it a lemon pound cake. Also, is there a glaze you would recommend?
Sam says
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Veronica! Ooh, I bet you could add a few tablespoons of zest and reduce the vanilla extract and add a half teaspoon or more lemon extract to make it lemon. I’d recommend using the glaze from my lemon poppyseed muffins (you may need to double it).
Anais Espino-Ferguson says
This recipe is so yummy. I had a client request a birthday pound cake, and I used this recipe (mom baker). I baked 3 layer cake in a 9inch round cake for 20-22 min at 350 degrees, and it was perfect. Also, had extra batter to make 12 cupcakes at 15-17 minutes. Thanks my family really enjoyed this recipe too 😊😋
Sam says
I am so glad everyone enjoyed it so much! I appreciate the feedback on baking it in 9 inch pans. It does make a lot of batter so I’m glad you were able to use it all. 🙂
Friend in NM says
Hello. Are there tricks for high altitude? Will I need to make adjustments (baking at 7,500 feet)?
Sam says
Unfortunately I am not very familiar with high altitude baking. Maybe someone else can chime in with any pointers. 🙂