Pound Cake Recipe
After months of research and testing I created Pound Cake Perfection. This is the ultimate old-fashioned, buttery pound cake that melts-in-your mouth. I think this will become your go-to recipe.
How to achieve Pound Cake Perfection
A really great pound cake should have an even crumb with a melt-in-your-mouth texture and buttery, vanilla flavor. It’s beautiful in it’s simplicity.
While I’m not opposed to a little glaze or powdered sugar on a pound cake, I think pound cake is meant to be eaten without any frosting. You want all the richness in the cake itself. If you’ve got a really great cake recipe, there’s no reason to hide it under a pile of sweet frosting.
So why is it called “pound cake” anyway?
Pound cake got it’s name based on the original formula of 1 pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. It’s called “quatre-quarts” (four-fourths) by the French.
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Cake Flour – Bleached cake flour makes the softest cake.
- Sugar – A little extra sugar tenderizes the cake.
- Milk – A little milk moistens the cake.
- Baking Powder – To lighten the cake crumb.
- Eggs – Extra egg yolks emulsify the batter so it can hold more moisture. The yolks also enrich the cake.
How to make Pound Cake
- Combine the eggs, yolks, half the milk and the vanilla in a small bowl. Set it aside.
- Sift the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl with the sugar.
- Mix the dry ingredients to combine.
- With the mixer running on low, toss the softened butter into the dry ingredients.
- Mix until the flour is coated with butter.
- With the mixer running, add the rest of the milk.
- Mix on medium high for 2-3 minutes to aerate the batter.
- Add the egg mixture and mix until smooth. Scrape the bowl in between to avoid lumps of thick batter.
- Pour the batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan, Bundt pan or angel food cake pan.
- Use the tip of a small spatula to make a trench down the center of the cake.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool at least 20 minutes before turning out of the pan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pound cake is meant to be eaten without frosting so the cake itself needs to be very moist and rich. Pound cake has a high proportion of butter. This gives pound cake a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Adding a little more sugar than the traditional pound cake recipe helps keep the cake moist. Adding milk also moistens the cake.
Cake flour makes a softer and more tender pound cake than all purpose flour. Bleached cake flour allows the batter to hold more liquid for a moister cake and is also slightly acidic. Acidity weakens gluten and makes a softer cake crumb.
The traditional pound cake recipe made with equal proportions of butter, sugar, flour and eggs can tend to be heavy. A little baking powder can be added to lighten the crumb.
Why this is a Better Pound Cake Recipe
There are about a bajillion pound cake recipes out there on the interwebs and, frankly, I’m shocked at how many of them still use the original 1:1:1:1 formula.
Personally, I find that recipe is less than ideal. It’s fairly dense, a little chewy and has a slightly flat taste.
I decided to tweak the traditional pound cake recipe to make it better. I baked 100+ pound cakes over several months of research and testing. I tested each ingredient and how it works in the cake. I also tested various mixing methods, ingredient temperatures and alternative ingredients.
If you’re a baking geek like me, you can read all about how I adjusted the percentages in this comprehensive post about creating a great cake recipe. I used the same formula to make a great Vanilla Butter Cake and White Cake recipe.
If you still haven’t slaked your thirst for all the knowledge about cake batter, go ahead and read through my 7-part Cake Batter Series.
Quick tip: To make an easy petite four cut the pound cake into cubes. Line the cubes onto a clean cooling rack set over a sheet pan. Drizzle Quick Fondant Icing over the cubes and leave them until the icing sets.
Here are some other pound cake recipes for you to try:
- Pistachio Pound Cake
- Key Lime Pound Cake
- Blueberry Pound Cake
- Honey Pound Cake
- Sour Cream Pound Cake
- Marble Pound Cake
- Coconut Pound Cake
- Chocolate Pound Cake
Now that you’ve made this recipe what should you do with all the extra egg whites? Check out this collection of recipes that use extra whites for some great ideas.
If you love this recipe as much as I do, please consider leaving a 5-star review.
Perfect Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs (room temp)
- 4 egg yolks (room temp)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 oz whole milk (¼ cup, divided)
- 8 oz cake flour (1 ¾ cups, see note)
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 10 oz granulated sugar (1 ¼ cups)
- 9 oz unsalted butter (room temp)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to at 350 °F. Butter and flour a 9"x5" loaf pan or Bundt pan.
- Combine 3 large eggs,4 egg yolks, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and half the milk in a small bowl, whisk to combine and set aside.2 oz whole milk
- Sift together 8 oz cake flour, ¼ teaspoon table salt and 1 teaspoon baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add 10 oz granulated sugar to the flour and mix at low speed for 30 seconds. Add 9 oz unsalted butter to the flour and mix until combined. Add the other ½ of the milk and increase the speed to medium high. Mix for a full 2-3 minutes. The batter will lighten in color and texture. If your using a hand mixer add another minute or two to the mixing time.
- Scrape the bowl and paddle thoroughly. On low speed, add the egg mixture in 3 increments, scraping the bowl after each addition. Mix just until the eggs are incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth to an even layer. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (about 55-65 minutes).
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then turn the cake out onto a cooling rack and cool to room temperature.
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Hi, is great to read your blog full of descriptions and science behind baking a great pound cake. Considering getting your pound cake book after I try this vanilla pound cake.
Before I get into it. I saw the ingredients that you are using pretty alot of sugar. Would this cake be tooo sweet. As I always try to reduce the amount of sugar for all my cakes and also try to mantain the softness of the cakes.
Hi Rachel, reducing the sugar will make the cake less sweet, but also less soft. You can look at this post about sugar in cake batter to find out the science behind why sugar makes cakes softer. You can always reduce the sugar to your taste. But at some point you’ll get more of a bread than a cake.
Thanks for your quick reply and I can start baking it today! I will follow exactly for this round. And see whether I like the sweetness level.
Please tell what should I do when now I don’t have cake flour and only have normal refined or all purpose flour here in lockdown India?
how long would the egg whites take to form soft peaks? approximately?
Hi Ujjaini, For each cup of cake flour you can substitute 3/4 of a cup of all purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons of corn starch. To replace the 1 3/4 cups of flour in the pound cake recipe you would use 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour plus 3 tablespoons and 1 1/2 teaspoons of corn starch. The eggs whites are not whipped for the pound cake recipe.
Thanks a lot dear Ma’am
Hi Eileen,
I have a version of Perfect Pound cake with 4 egg, 3 yolks. I assume you have updated your recipe? I was about to make it when I noticed the difference. Also, the photos of your Pound Cake (and also for the Sour Cream version) look quite white – which is what I’d like to achieve. However as I consider the amount of yolks, I would expect a more yellow cake. Was it your lighting, or is that what I can expect since it states that it lightens in color as mixing.
One final question is regarding the even/solid appearance (minimal air holes) – if you mix for several minutes, doesn’t that add air/holes to the cake? I just wanted to double check before making it – eggs are sometimes in short supply at the supermarket so I’m stingy right now:)
Hi Rosanna, Yes I did update the recipe, as I’m always tweaking and perfecting. The cake will be a little more yellow with the extra yolk, but will still be fairly pale. Especially if you make sure your butter is room temp (not cold, not melty) and mix for the full 2-3 minutes before the eggs are added to get air into the batter. Regarding the even appearance, because this recipe uses reverse creaming you do tend to get a more even texture without large air bubbles. Because most of the aeration is done before the eggs are added you’ll get smaller air bubbles.
In Step 4 where eggs are added to the beaten butter/flour, how much mixing should there be? Should it be stirred until just combined and no visible eggs streaks or should it be beaten until fluffier after each egg addition? Also, how easy is it to over beat the creaming stage in Step 3, is there a lot of head room before a creaming becomes over creamed?
Thanks for the recipe!
You’re not likely to over beat in step 3 (before the eggs are added). There is a lot of room before the batter is over creamed. Unless you let it go on so long the butter melts, etc. After each addition of the eggs, mix just until combined. At this point you’re not looking to add any more air to the batter. With the introduction of more liquid from the eggs this is the point where over-mixing could toughen the cake.
I followed the series, and I must say THANK YOU.
I allways wanted to make an Orange pound cake (Love Orange), but never really liked must of the recipes I´ve come across. So I´ve decided to make my own from scratch, following this recipe.
So what I did was:
* Change Milk for Orange Juice (same cuantity)
* Use a full orange zest (It´s was greenish, so it had a little bitter flavor, really strong, but delicious aftertaste)
* Made my own “Cake Flour”, adding some corn starch to All P.
* The biggest change was the fat: I wanted an oil based cake, so I used Soy (What I had at hand), but didint wanted it to be too “Oily” son only used 200g
* My biggest concern was the eggs, to maintain the Egg-Fat ratio, I used 4 whole eggs, and hope the Lecitin in the Soy Oil workad as emulsifier… It did just perfect
* Finally, just compensate the 60g of Juice with extra sugar…. the sugar ratio was 115%. Sweeter, but not too sweet to overwhelm the orange.
It was perfect: The crumb was soft and light, kinda flexible, and the taste was excellent… Sweet in the mouth and a strong orange aftertaste.
Again, Thank you. God Bless
Hey, that’s wonderful Roy! That’s exactly why I did this series. I have a Facebook Group, Baking Sense Recipe Workshop, to talk about working on recipes like this. Anyone can join if you just send a request. We’d love to have you in the group and hear about how you adapted the recipe.