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If you’re looking for a simple dessert that doesn’t require a lot of fussy ingredients but tastes like a million dollars, Easy Pound Cake is exactly what to make. Enjoy it plain, with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, or stacked with fresh berries and whipped cream to make shortcake.
Melt In Your Mouth Pound Cake
As a classically-trained chef, and perhaps in spite of my extensive baking experience, I believe in keeping dessert recipes simple, flavorful, and easy to follow whenever possible. The secret to this pound cake is the butter. While this pound cake doesn’t actually contain a full pound of butter, even a half pound gives this cake its signature buttery taste and melt-in-your-mouth texture.
While developing this classic pound cake recipe, I tested a few different methods including blending the butter and eggs in a food processor (an America’s Test Kitchen trick). However, at the end of the day, the cake I loved the most was mixed by hand in a couple of bowls, no fancy equipment required.
Serve this pound cake with fresh berries and whipped cream, chocolate sauce, or caramel sauce. Or, add your favorite extract or zest to change up the flavor. It also makes an ideal base for shortcake.
Table of Contents
Pound Cake Recipe Ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
- Cake flour: This finely milled, bleached flour has a lower protein content (about 8%) than all-purpose flour. Making cakes with cake flour gives your desserts a soft, tender texture and an excellent crumb.
- Vanilla: Or substitute almond extract. See Recipe Tips and Variations for other flavor combinations to try.
How to Make Vanilla Pound Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray, then line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. In a second bowl or a large measuring cup, whisk together the sugar, melted butter (you can use unsalted butter if you prefer), eggs, and vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl while mixing.
- Scrape into prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean with a few crumbs attached, about 55 to 60 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and peel the parchment from the bottom of the cake. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.
Pound Cake Recipe Tips and Variations
- Yield: This recipe makes 1 loaf of Easy Pound Cake, enough for 8 slices or so depending on how you cut them.
- Mixer: If you prefer to use a stand mixer, start with your dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk your wet ingredients together separately, then add to the dry and combine on medium speed.
- Mini pound cakes: This recipe will also make 4 miniature pound cakes. Use four 2-cup mini loaf pans and reduce the baking time to 40 minutes.
- Lemon pound cake: Add 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest and 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice to the sugar before processing in Step 2.
- Orange pound cake: Add 1 tablespoon grated orange zest and 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice to the sugar before processing in Step 2.
- Ginger pound cake: Add 3 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger, 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger, and ½ teaspoon mace to the sugar before processing in Step 2.
- Bundt cake: For a similar cake made in a bundt pan, try my Hot Milk Cake. It also has a light yet tight crumb and a delicious vanilla flavor.
How to Store Pound Cake
Store wrapped at room temperature for up to 4 days.
To Freeze
Wrap in plastic wrap and transfer to a freezer bag. Label, date, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
How to Serve Pound Cake
Pound Cake is delicious plain, but it’s heavenly when served with a mound of whipped cream and a pile of fresh strawberries (the pound cake version of Strawberry Shortcake).
Frequently Asked Questions
The secret is the butter. While cakes don’t actually contain a full pound of butter anymore (they used to), they are still made a lot of it and it gives pound cakes their signature buttery taste.
To produce a properly risen pound cake that doesn’t fall, make sure your leavening agent is fresh, not expired. We use baking powder in this recipe, but the same would apply to baking soda. Do not over-mix the cake batter either. Over-mixing can incorporate too much air which gives an artificial lift to the batter while it’s baking but ultimately, it might fall. Last, be sure to keep the oven door closed until the baking time is up. No peaking!
This easy pound cake recipe is made in a standard loaf pan, approximately 8 ½ inches by 4 ½ inches by 2 ½ inches.
Serving suggestions for pound cake
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Easy Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour (see note 1)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup butter melted (2 sticks)
- 4 eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (see note 2)
- powdered sugar for dusting, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray, then line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. In a second bowl or a large measuring cup, whisk together the sugar, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients and slowly pour in the wet ingredients, whisking constantly until most of the lumps are gone. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean with a few crumbs attached, about 50 to 60 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.
- Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and peel the parchment from the bottom of the cake. Cool completely before slicing. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Cake flour: This finely milled, bleached flour has a lower protein content (about 8%) than all-purpose flour. Making cakes with cake flour gives your desserts a soft, tender texture and an excellent crumb.
- Vanilla: Or see Recipe Tips and Variations for other flavor combinations to try.
- Yield: This recipe makes 1 loaf of Easy Pound Cake, enough for 8 slices or so depending on how you cut them.
- Storage: Store wrapped at room temperature for up to 4 days.
I made this today and it sunk in the middle.And I’ve never had that happen before.It seems like there is not enough flour in this recipe.Compared to how much butter is in there.
Hi Charlene, I’m so sorry your pound cake fell! There are a couple reasons that could have caused it to fall in the middle, including too much liquid, cake flour wasn’t measured out well, or the batter could have been over-whisked in step 3 which would cause the gluten in the flour to over develop. Did you use a dark pan? Those tend to bake hotter than light ones, so in addition to using an oven thermometer to make sure your oven is at temperature, you may want to reduce the temperature some and bake a little longer, rotating the cake halfway through baking as directed. I’m so sorry again that your cake fell. I hope this helps and your next one comes out perfectly. – Meggan
I wanted to try this recipe easy pound cake. I noticed that it has no milk Etc, it doesn’t seem to have enough wet ingredients to cause that to make a batter and bake. Is the recipe for some reason failed to include the amount of milk to complete this recipe.
Hi Andranette, thank you for your comment. This recipe’s wet ingredients are melted butter, eggs, and vanilla. Some readers have added a little milk, but it’s not necessary. I hope you try this recipe! Please write back with anymore questions! – Meggan
Why parchment and do you cut off any tall parchment areas? I was kind of confused; lemon juice to the sugar before processing in Step 2.
In a second bowl or a large measuring cup, whisk together the sugar, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla.
I had put the sugar and lemon in with the flour and didn’t notice their is another bowl in step 2; could you have done a foot note if the orange or lemon etc are going to be in 2nd bowl or 3 bowls due to sugar and lemon in a 3rd bowl and added to the eggs/butter and vanilla?
I use parchment to make releasing the cake from the pan easier. You don’t have to, but just make sure you grease the pan well. I typically fold it to fit rather than cutting off the excess.
To your recipe question, you mean the lemon and orange variations right? It’s supposed to read like: mix together dry ingredients then the wet, then put them together. So I was adding the lemon or orange with the wet ingredients. But it honestly doesn’t matter. I hope this helps. I’ll revisit those recipe notes and make sure it’s super clear. Thanks! – Meggan
From North Carolina where every at every social event you will find more than one Pound Cake! Almost a staple! LOL! This one is my favorite recipe! Definitely continues to taste better each day. I would like to make a regular cake size, round or Bundt size. What should the measurements/quantities be? Or do you use a different recipe?
Thank you!
Janet
Hi Janet! I do not know off the top of my head how to convert this to a regular cake or bundt. I would have to work at it, I’ve been working on making a coconut pound cake later and MINI bundt cakes (but those are lemon flavored and unrelated to this). So I don’t have an answer for you and I’m sorry about that, I do think it would be lovely as a bundt. I might be able to get to it someday, not this summer certainly as I have to head back to Wisconsin next week. Sorry about that! I do have a Hot Milk Cake which is vanilla, very lovely, made in a bundt. You can see it here: https://cash-surge.live/old-fashioned-hot-milk-cake-recipe/%3C/a%3E Thanks! – Meggan
I live in a city that is at 3000 ft above sea level.
Do I need to make any adjustments to this recipe?
Hi Linda, high-altitude baking is a complex topic! I haven’t tested this recipe at your elevation, but I have some guidelines I can offer. These are based on a really great guide from Colorado State University which I found here: https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/high-altitude-food-preparation-p41/#3k
You should refer to Table 3 for cakes.
They suggest reducing the baking powder by 1/8 tsp, reducing sugar by 0-1 Tbsp, and/or increasing liquid by 1-2 Tbsp (in this case I guess it would be the melted butter?). It’s not clear to me if you should do ALL these changes at once or just one at a time. They also say that sometimes recipes work fine without any adjustments.
King Arthur also has a baking guide for this: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/resources/high-altitude-baking
I hope this helps! Good luck. – Meggan
So easy and So good. I don’t like things too sugary sweet, so I used only 1 cup of sugar. Making another one today will do 3/4 sugar but worried if it will be as good as the first one as the texture and crust was perfect. I also added orange extract with the vanilla extract. This is now my official Go To dessert for potlucks, and gifts.
Thank you for sharing this.
So happy to hear that, Alice! – Meggan
Easy peasy recipe!
That’s what we like, Sandra! – Meggan
Great recipe! I ran out of vanilla extract but I still wanted the vanilla flavour so I added 100g of vanilla yogurt and reduced the butter a little. Turned out to be a perfectly moist cake.
That’s good to know. Happy it turned out perfectly! – Meggan
One more question Megan.
Can I bake the pound cake in a convection oven?
And at what temp and time?
Hi Linda! I haven’t tested this particular recipe in a convection oven, but the general advice is to reduce the baking temperature by 25 degrees AND check the time 10 minutes earlier than what the recipe says. So for this recipe, you’d bake the cake at 325 degrees and start checking it for doneness after 40 minutes. Again, I haven’t tested this, but that’s the formula most people seem to suggest. Good luck! Thank you! -Meggan
Hi Meggan – I used Orange extract. Love the recipe but have a few questions:
1. Am I correct to assume you use a metal pan (rather than a glass pan)?
2. Salted or Unsalted butter?
3. If adding Craisins (coated with flour) do I need to make any adjustments to the ingredients?
Thank you.
Hi Linda! This recipe is SORELY lacking in process shots, you shouldn’t have to wonder what kind of pan I used. I’m so sorry about that. Yes, I always use a metal pan. I always use salted butter! I know that’s unconventional. People always talk about “controlling the salt in a recipe” and while that’s true, I will inevitably run out of salted butter while buttering toast. Then I sub in unsalted, and my day is ruined. I also don’t think salted butter is overly salty, one to the next. I just use salted in almost every recipe and I’ve never had a problem. Now – adding Craisins. I “think” that should be fine, but I haven’t tried it, so I’m hesitate to make promises. Gun-shy, we’ll say. I don’t want to lie to you. It’s “probably” fine, but without testing it I cannot say for sure. I have added Craisins to other quick breads like pumpkin bread, and it was always fine. You’ll have to test it at your own risk until I have a chance to find out for myself. Thanks for the questions, I hope it all works out for you. Take care Linda! -Meggan