A true classic, my Pound Cake recipe is simple (only six ingredients) and satisfying! This cake is heavy and dense (as it ought to be!) while simultaneously being soft, buttery, and absolutely melt-in-your-mouth! It’s incredible served alone or pairs beautifully with whipped cream and fresh fruit. Recipe includes a how-to video!
Traditional Pound Cake (Made Better!)
I’m not sure where pound cake rates in terms of your favorite cake recipes, but I’ll admit it had never been a top contender for in my household. Humble and frosting-less, sure I would have a slice, but nobody in my house ever really got excited about pound cake, often overlooking it for light and fluffy angel food cake or prettily iced layer cakes.
If your experience with pound cakes of the past is anything like mine, you’re in for a real treat today. I set about developing this recipe with a mission, determined to perfect a pound cake that was simple and not overly complicated, one that didn’t stray too far from the traditional version (no fancy or unusual ingredients) but at the same time put all of its predecessors to shame.
Here you have it. Perfectly balanced, rich and sweet, my pound cake is so buttery and soft that melts in your mouth, and it’s anything but boring. It’s a heavy cake (as pound cakes should be!) with a dense, velvety crumb, but there’s nothing dry or crumbly about it.
While this cake can hold it’s own, it’s even better when served with homemade whipped cream and fresh fruit. It would also pair well with a spoonful or two of lemon curd (a great way to use up some leftover egg yolks!).
Break out your bowls–you’re going to need a big one–and let’s talk about what it is that makes this cake so perfectly special and irresistible.
What You Need (and What You DON’T)
Pound cake has traditionally been made with a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. When developing my recipe, I wanted to stay as true as I could to the traditional version, but some small adjustments were in order for the absolute best flavor (I mean, hello, vanilla extract!). The result is a soft, buttery crumb that’s perfectly dense without being at all dry or crumbly.
- Butter. Unsalted butter works best for this cake. It should be softened, but not so soft that it’s greasy, melty, or oily.
- Sugar. We stick with tradition and use regular granulated sugar only in this cake. Make sure to whip your butter and sugar until fully incorporated and fluffy before you move to the next step.
- Eggs. You will need six whole eggs and six additional egg yolks. It might seem like a lot, and it is, but trust me! The extra yolks help to keep the cake crumb moist with almost custardy undertones/flavors. We omit extra whites because they would make the cake crumb too light (remember, this is a dense cake!) and could even make it dry. This cake is perfect for using up extra yolks from another recipe! Save your extra egg whites to make meringue, pavlova, or Eton mess!
- Vanilla. You’re going to add a whole tablespoon of vanilla to this cake batter. This may seem like a lot, but I promise it’s just the right amount! PS. If you have a batch of homemade vanilla extract sitting in your cabinet, this is the time to bring it out!
- Salt. For flavor, I add a little salt.
- Flour. I specificaly developed this recipe to be perfectly soft and tender using plain ol’ all-purpose flour, but include notes in the recipe in case you’d like to substitute cake flour. Make sure you know how to measure your flour properly, or may end up with a dry cake. One more thing that I cannot stress highly enough: do not, under any circumstances, use self-rising flour. Your cake will almost absolutely overflow.
You may notice that my pound cake recipe does not use baking powder. This is intentional! Pound cake ought to have a dense crumb, and baking powder serves to lighten a cake’s crumb and help it rise. The eggs in our recipe work all of the rising-magic that we need, and not only would adding baking powder make the cake crumb too light (best-case-scenario), you’re also bound to find it’s overflowed all over your oven when the baking time has elapsed.
SAM’S TIP FOR LEMON POUND CAKE: I’ve received lots of requests for how to make a lemon version of this pound cake recipe. While you could just swap out the vanilla extract for lemon, it’s not going to taste as bright and sunny as you’re used to. I have a separate lemon pound cake recipe that packs lots of lemon flavor and is draped in a stunning white glaze. I highly recommend you try it!
As always, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Pound Cake
- Grease and flour your baking pan. Shake out any excess flour and set aside.
- Beat the butter until smooth, then add sugar. Cream until light and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, combine eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, and salt. Slowly drizzle egg mixture into your butter mixture with mixer on low speed. Pause to scrape sides and bottom of the bowl, then increase speed and beat for another 1-2 minutes.
- Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour. Scrape and stir again on medium speed until well-combined, then beat for another minute. You should have a completely smooth, uniform batter. Pour batter into prepared pan, smoothing the top.
- Bake in 350F oven for an hour and ten to an hour and fifteen minutes. Test with a wooden skewer for doneness.
- Cool for 20 minutes, then run a knife around the sides and center of the pan before carefully inverting onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before serving.
SAM’S TIP: To test if your cake is 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 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 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
While this recipe was very deliberately developed to be moist, the most important thing when baking your pound cake is to make sure that you do NOT over-bake it. I recommend 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. Because of its thick batter and the sheer volume of batter, it’s going to take quite a while in the oven, probably an hour and ten to an hour and fifteen minutes. I check my cake at one hour and then return it to the oven in about 5-minute increments until it’s finished baking.
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? 😉
This pound cake should not overflow if prepared as written and baked in the proper-sized pan (indicated in the recipe card). I have found that some people have had their cakes overflow, and in each instance this has happened because they had substituted self rising flour, used 12 whole eggs, or added baking powder to the recipe. Please do not make any of these alterations.
Enjoy!
More Classic Cakes to Try:
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
The Perfect Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups (455 g) unsalted butter softened
- 3 ½ cups (700 g) granulated sugar
- 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 ½ cups (438 g) all-purpose (plain) flour²
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.2 cups (455 g) unsalted butter
- 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).3 ½ cups (700 g) granulated sugar
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, combine your eggs, additional egg yolks, vanilla extract, and salt.6 large whole eggs¹, 6 large egg yolks¹, 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon 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 ¼ cup at a time, add flour to the batter until all has been added.3 ½ cups (438 g) all-purpose (plain) flour²
- 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 in the center rack of your oven 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
¹Eggs
A lot of people have had questions about how many eggs to use. You need a total of 12 eggs for this recipe BUT you are only going to be using 6 whole eggs and then another 6 egg yolks. Meaning you will be discarding 6 egg whites (or save them to make meringue cookies or my white cake).²Cake Flour
If you’d like, you can substitute cake flour. If measuring your flour by weight (which you really should be!) you can do a straight 1:1 substitute for cake flour. If measuring by cups you will need 3 ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons of cake flour. This cake will turn out just as well; slightly softer, a smidge less dense, but still delicious. Just like with using all-purpose flour, you DO NOT need to add baking powder to this recipe if you use cake flour. Also worth noting: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE SELF-RISING FLOUR.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Richie
Hi
I’ve used this recipe twice now, and following the directions to the letter (aside from baking a bit longer until the center was ‘clean’), the results have been superb. My family loves it, and now extended family are requesting me to bake it for Thanksgiving. That may not sound like a big deal, but I’m a 55 year old dude with no previous baking skills. To me that speaks to the accuracy of your recipe. And now I’ve added 2 other baking recipes to my repertoire and loving it!
Thanks so much!
Richie
Tonya L Sutter
how cute 🥰
Don
Well Sam, I’ve got a story to tell – if you’ll permit me. I’m soon to be 81 and have never baked a cake. When I was in my early-teens, my mother baked the most delicious cake I had ever eaten – pound cake or any other. I begged her to make the cake again and again for our family as well as any special occasion or church function. At some point I asked her if the cake had a name and she said it was a Butter Pound Cake explaining what meant in terms of the ingredients. I didn’t ask for the recipe then – and several years later after mom passed and thinking it had been passed to one of my sisters – I found it had not. It’s been close to 68 years since I had a taste of that cake and finally decided to search the internet to find something similar to the recipe she told me about – remembering only the name and the fact that it contained a pound of butter. I found your recipe and followed your instructions to the “T”. The cake turned out perfectly – and the taste of that warm cake after cooling was exactly as I recalled as a boy standing in mom’s kitchen after she handed me a slice of her freshly baked Butter Pound Cake. So, thank you for helping me to bake my first ever cake and for bring those long ago memories back to an old man.
Sam
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Don! Hearing these kinds of things really puts a big smile on my face. I’m so glad the recipe turned out to be just like you remember. Baking can provide so many good memories. 🙂
Tonya L Sutter
I’m not crying 🥹💕
Rochelle Winney
Can this be baked as cupcakes?
Sam
Hi Rochelle! This should work just fine as cupcakes. I haven’t tried it personally but I think bake time would be around 17 minutes. 🙂
Audrey
Hello. Can I use sour cream and possibly cut from 12 eggs?
Sam
Hi Audrey! Try my sour cream pound cake instead 🙂
Matthew & Amelia Mae
My 7 year old daughter and I have enjoyed trying this. Sadly, each time it took much longer to bake so our tops were a little burnt and the middle a little wet. We’re amateur bakers, so going to make sure our ingredients are @ room temperature, get an oven thermometer, weigh out the flour more carefully and acquire a new tube pan. We used a loaf / bundt pan the first two times as it’s all we had. If you have any other tips let us know ! Thanks for the great recipe !
Sam
I would check your oven temperature as you said. If the outside is burning before the inside is cooking your oven may be a bit hot. I’m glad you still enjoy it! 🙂
Pat
Could I bake this in2 loaf pans.
Sam
Hi Pat! That will work just fine. I’m not sure on a bake time though. 🙂
Michael
Fantastic! Absolutely love this pound cake. Well worth every calorie, and I’ll definitely be making it again.
Sam
So happy to hear this, Michael! Thank you for trying my recipe!
Danielle
This was my time making a poundcake. No lie I did follow the exact instructions and especially did not use self rising flour. However, my cake rose over 2 inches out of the 10 inch pan. In addition, I followed the exact cooking time out of fear that my cake would dry out, and so when I took my cake after it was cooked in 75 minutes, I let it cool down for 20 minutes as instructed. Fortunately, when I cut a slice, my cake runneth over in the middle, and I somewhat panicked because I knew in Chef Ramsay’s language, my cake was “Raw”. So I cooked my cake 20 extra minutes and although it cooked more in the middle, it still had a lil “custard” like texture. I gave my husband a piece of the cake after it was completely cooled and added whip cream along with fresh strawberries. Unfortunately for the first time ever, my husband did not say a single word of after he ate his cake and that’s when I knew this was an epic fail. Baking a cake is like a science experiment. You can follow the instructions exactly as your instructor says, and hope for the best that you will get the same results as your instructor. However, there are some variables that leads to different results. So back to the drawing board in searching for the best poundcake recipe🫠
Sam
Hi Danielle! I just wanted to confirm that you used a tube pan here? That’s very frustrating. If it helps, I do have a video that shows you all of the steps. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out. 🙁
Danielle
Thank you for writing back. I am confirming that I did use a 10 inch tube pan. I got it from Walmart. Thank you checking if I used the right equipment. I wish I could share my pictures
Sam
Hmmm. I’m so sorry to hear this. I will test it out again in my own kitchen because I want to make sure things are still good and it’s been a while since I’ve made this one. 🙁
Audrey
Yes, I tested it. I followed the recipe exactly, including testing it, but my results were the exact same as Danielle’s. Cooked for an extra 20 minutes, and it was starting to burn on top but custardy in the middle.
Sam
That’s so frustrating! Do you by chance have an oven thermometer in your oven? To me this sounds like an issue of the oven being too hot. If you do not, I think I would recommend lowing your oven temperature and baking for longer.
Audrey
I hate that I didn’t read this comment before making this recipe. I feel like I just wasted a pound of butter. I don’t have anything to add to your comment except the same exact thing happened to me. I guess I’ll toss it back in the oven…but it sounds like it won’t be good. I’m so upset.
Sam
Hi Audrey! Did you test it with a skewer to make sure it was done baking?
Kj
May want to be sure that all ingredients are room temperature prior to starting. If you are using cold ingredients this will happen. At least base upon my past experiences
Tisa
I am making this right now! I have been trying to tweak my recipe to create a tighter crumb. We shall see! The batter is definitely heavy lol! I’ll come back to let you know how it turned out. Thanks!
Mary Boykin
This is the most delicious Pound Cake ever! The amount of butter and the total egg count caught my eye! I had to try it. I did opt to use sugar rather than flour to prep the pan. Yummy sugared crust. Thank you immensely for this wonderful recipe.
Joni Ramirez
I really like this recipe. I’ve made it a few times. The taste is wonderful. This last time it was a smidge undercooked but definitely not enough to make me stop eating it! 😆 I’ll add five minutes to the book time next go round. I really take my time with creaming the butter and sugar and I get a perfect crumb. I top with powered sugar and sometimes pair it with sliced fresh fruit or fruit compote.
Darla Allen
Do you sift the flour for this recipe?
Sam
Hi Darla! No need here. 🙂
Jessica
Your ingredients didn’t have how much you were supposed to use next to them. Which is not helpful. Can you please provide amounts?
Sam
Hi Jessica! All of the amounts of ingredients are listed in the ingredients sections just above the recipe steps, right below the video. 🙂
Shirley Y
Perfect! My pound cake was moist, which is exactly what I wanted. I added in cocoa powder to make a Chocolate pound cake. Thank you for this recipe!
Peter Mazakas
I’ve made this recipe several times for my wife and some parties. Everyone always says how it is an incredible poundcake. Can I make this into a pumpkin pound cake with a can of pumpkin and some pumpkin spice?
Sam
I am so thrilled to hear this, Peter! Modifying the recipe to add pumpkin is a bit tricky and unfortunately I don’t think it would be quite that simple, as the pumpkin would add a lot of liquid to the batter and I don’t think it would cook properly. Have you seen my pumpkin bundt cake? That may be close to what you are looking for!
Vanessa L Mulligan
I’m making a cake with this recipe and using 9 inch cake rounds. How should I adjust the cooking time?
Sam
Hi Vanessa! I have never baked them in a 9 inch pan so I can’t say for sure how long they would need to bake. Make sure to keep an eye on them.
Blair
If I wanted to add a touch of lemon flavor, how much lemon extract should I add?
Sam
Hi Blair! I would probably leave out the vanilla and use at least a teaspoon. I haven’t tried it to give you an exact amount but you don’t want to overdo it. 🙂
Kathy Rebane
I am making a train cake or my grandson’s birthday. I was going to use mini loaf pans for each car and make each car a different colour. I thought pound cake might be good because it is denser. Would you recommend this or would you have a better idea?
Sam
Hi Kathy! I think the pound cake could work, or my yellow cake would work well too. 🙂