Traditional Butter Pound Cake
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This traditional Butter Pound Cake recipe is the best pound cake you’ll ever have! This simple pound cake without leavening is a dessert I make again and again!
If you’re looking for more pound cake without leavening, check out my Chocolate Pound Cake, Strawberry Donut Pound Cake, or my Earl Grey Green Tea Pound Cake.
Table of Contents
I cannot believe I am only sharing this recipe with you guys now. My traditional Butter Pound Cake is the foundation for so many of my cake recipes on the blog like my Chocolate Pound Cake, Earl Grey Green Tea Pound Cake, Chocolate Donut Pound Cake, or my Strawberry Donut Pound Cake – to name a few!
People always ask me for a classic Pound Cake recipe, and I always give them this recipe either over text, DM, or email. Yet for some reason it has taken me this long to add my Traditional Butter Pound Cake recipe to my site!
But the wait is over, now I can finally point people here, instead of reciting the recipe by heart, because I make this cake all the time! No joke! I have an obsession with pound cake. And, it was the second cake flavor I ever developed on my own (my Carrot Cake was the first, find the recipe for that in The Mountain Baker!).
I spent hours, days, weeks, and months working on this traditional Butter Pound Cake recipe trying to recreate something from my childhood. Every Fourth of July, my Aunt Marina would host a raging Fourth of July party at her beach house that was on Lake Michigan.
And every year, like clockwork, there was a pound cake on the buffet table. Now, I don’t know who made it, or if it was bought from a local bakery – I never seemed to get that far because I was too busy stuffing my face with it the entire day. I probably ate half that cake myself each year. It was something I looked forward to and enjoyed more than anything at the party!
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Pound Cake Without Leavening: You will love this recipe because this is the most traditional Butter Pound Cake recipe. This is a pound cake without leavening, meaning that it doesn’t require any baking soda or baking powder. This makes it an amazing cake to bake if you’re out of leavening!
Buttery & Sweet: But this traditional Butter Pound Cake is so special because it has such simple ingredients that truly shine. This cake is buttery, moist, and melts in your mouth. And it has a flavor that is beyond any plain vanilla cake you’ve ever had.
Classic: I top this traditional Butter Pound Cake with simple powdered sugar. But, if you want to add glaze, frosting, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries – they would all be delicious! This is a blank slate that is as good on its own as it is with anything else added to it. Pair this traditional Butter Pound Cake with coffee, tea, milk, hot chocolate – or eat it plain. I really enjoy eating this for brunch and indulging on the weekends.
Ingredients
Simply Organic Vanilla Extract
Florida Crystals Organic Powdered Sugar
Tools Needed
Parchment Paper (get my favorite nontoxic parchment paper and get 10% off with MIMIBAKES)
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Step by Step Instructions
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 1-pound loaf pan with parchment paper, letting it fold over the sides for easier removal.
Step 2
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, cane sugar and vanilla extract. Add in the eggs and mix on low until combined. Scrape down the side of the bowl and mix again until combined.
Add the milk, cake flour and sea salt in that order, and mix on low until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure a smooth batter and everything is mixed.
Step 3
Pour the cake batter into the loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely in the cake pan.
Step 4
Sift powdered sugar on top.
FAQ's
According to Wikipedia, pound cake originated in Northern Europe. It dates back to the 1700s!
Pound cake got its name because the original recipe included a pound of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour! Recipes range now, and so many people dub their recipe as a pound cake. But, I believe a pound cake is a cake that is made without leavening, is rich, buttery, and dense. That’s how I was introduced to it though, and it may be different for everyone!
Yes! Pound cake is one of my favorite desserts to make ahead of time. I even think it tastes better the next day! I always make my pound cakes at night, let them sit overnight (no need to cover them or anything as that top crust is fine to leave out and the rest of the cake is sealed in the pan). Then, the following day, I know they have cooled enough to remove them with ease, and they taste the best!
After you remove the pound cake from its pan, be sure to store it in an airtight container like a cake dome, Tupperware, or zip bag. Pound cake is moist and it needs to be kept airtight to retain that amazing texture.
I have always made pound cakes with cake flour because I use no leavening. I believe pound cake is a dense but light cake. And in order to achieve that texture, I use a lower protein content flour (cake flour) and no leavening. You could also use pastry flour in place of cake flour if you don’t have it. You can also make your own Homemade Cake Flour (this is what I do!).
I have always used my USA Pan 1 Pound Loaf Pan for pound cakes, and I talk about that with my Chocolate Pound Cake and Funfetti Pound Cake. But I decided to use my Caraway Loaf Pan to try it out for this one because I thought it would look cute with the rounded edges, and was I surprised!
Turns out, the Caraway Loaf Pan created more brown than the USA Pan. I was literally shocked! While it did come out a little bit wider and shorter than my other ones, the result on the edges of the cake was insanely better – more brown! And you know what they say, there’s flavor in the brown! The brown parts are the absolute best part of pound cake! I always fight Delaney for the end pieces, but with using the Caraway Loaf Pan, the sides get that extra brown too where you don’t get it as much with the USA Pan.
So, my answer is going to be the USA Pan 1 Pound Loaf Pan (which is aluminum) or the Caraway Loaf Pan (which is ceramic). Check out my Funfetti Pound Cake and look at the photos compared to this one, it’s the same cake recipe, and it looks a lot different – just from the loaf pan!
Yes! If you want to make this pound cake without leavening in a bundt pan, you totally can! Just double the recipe, as you’ll need way more cake batter to do so. You’ll also have to bake it for a bit longer, start with 1 ½ hours and go from there.
Unfortunately, I have not tested this for gluten free. And the reason for that is because I do not think that this recipe will translate well to gluten free. This traditional Butter Pound Cake only has a few ingredients, and those ingredients really matter – gluten being one of the key ingredients. I feel like in order to create an equally delicious gluten free pound cake, I’d have to start from scratch on the recipe and there would be too many changes to provide a simple substitution like I do for so many other cakes or cookie recipes. I always want to share the best possible gluten free recipes, and if something isn’t possible or isn’t that good, then I don’t offer a substitute.
Craving More?
Traditional Butter Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 113 grams salted butter (softened)
- 340 grams cane sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs (room temperature)
- ½ cup milk (room temperature)
- 212 grams cake flour
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- powdered sugar (for topping)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 1-pound loaf pan with parchment paper, letting it fold over the sides for easier removal.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, cane sugar and vanilla extract. Add in the eggs and mix on low until combined. Scrape down the side of the bowl and mix again until combined.
- Add the milk, cake flour and sea salt in that order, and mix on low until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure a smooth batter and everything is mixed.
- Pour the cake batter into the loaf pan and spread evenly.
- Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely in the cake pan.
- Sift powdered sugar on top.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 7 days.
Notes
Nutrition
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