This recipe produces a perfect cream cheese pound cake. After persistent recipe testing with many failures, I found the best ratio of ingredients to produce a moist, dense, and flavorful pound cake. Using 9 simple ingredients, this cream cheese pound cake recipe will be your new favorite. To prevent a ruined cake, follow the baking time and temperature closely.
Until recently, I had never made really good plain pound cake. I have delicious lemon pound cake, raspberry swirl pound cake, brown butter pound cake, and Nutella swirl pound cake in my back pocket, but regular pound cake has always been a disappointment. It was so hard for me to tackle this recipe because pound cake can easily turn out dry, rock solid, and/or lacking flavor.
But then I began adding cream cheese and sour cream to the cake batter. And my long history of pound cake disappointments began fading away.
Here’s Why You’ll Love This Pound Cake Recipe
Today I’m teaching you how to make my favorite cream cheese pound cake in a Bundt pan. I’m confident this is the best pound cake and I’m showing you exactly why:
- Very buttery & very moist
- Not dry
- 1 bowl recipe
- Only 9 basic ingredients
- Dense, but not heavy as a brick
- Soft & smooth crumb
- A little tang from cream cheese
- Sweet & vanilla flavored
You can easily halve this recipe for a loaf pan or try my mini pound cakes recipe.
Ingredients You Need & Why
Here are the ingredients for cream cheese pound cake and why each is used.
- Butter: Butter is the base of pound cake. You need 3 sticks of room temperature butter.
- Cream Cheese: Cream cheese is the difference between dry pound cake and moist pound cake. End of story. If you’ve experienced dry pound cake before, cream cheese will solve all those problems. I swear by it and you will too! Full-fat brick-style cream cheese (not the spreadable kind in a tub) is imperative here, just like for classic cheesecake and cream cheese frosting.
- Sugar: This is a very large cake, so a lot of sugar is required to sweeten the cake and properly cream all the butter and cream cheese. 2 and 1/2 cups seems like a lot, but remember this cake is heavy and yields many servings.
- Sour Cream: Sour cream is an unconventional ingredient in pound cake, but it adds so much moisture. We are avoiding dry pound cake as much as we can!
- Vanilla Extract & Salt: Both are used for flavor. See recipe notes for more flavors.
- Eggs: Eggs are the workhorse of pound cake—the main ingredient carrying all the weight. You can’t make pound cake without eggs.
- Cake Flour: Cake flour is lighter than all-purpose flour and produces the best pound cake in my opinion. Since it’s so light, the attention remains on the butter. All-purpose flour is simply too heavy for this pound cake recipe; the cake will be heavy as a brick. If needed, use this homemade cake flour substitute.
- Baking Powder: Baking powder is another unconventional ingredient in pound cake. I don’t use much for this amount of batter, but the small amount lightly lifts the crumb so the cake isn’t overly heavy and squat.
Each ingredient is important and has a very specific job!
Pound Cake Disasters: Don’t Do This
And now it’s time to discuss what can go very wrong with pound cake. I’m sharing my mistakes so you don’t waste time or ingredients. The picture below shows 2 pound cake disasters I experienced before landing on the perfect pound cake recipe and method.
- Mistake #1 – Left Picture: This is seriously under-cooked pound cake baked at 350°F (177°C). This temperature is TOO HOT for pound cake, which is mostly butter and eggs, to cook evenly. As you can see below, the exterior will brown before the center is cooked. I was so upset cutting into this cake. It looked perfect on the outside.
- Mistake #2 – Right Picture: This is seriously over-cooked pound cake. Learning from mistake #1, I cooked the pound cake at 325°F (163°C). I was so nervous to under-bake the pound cake, so I over-baked it. The cake wouldn’t release from the pan, even though it had been generously greased.
These cakes were just awful!
Here’s How You Make The Most PERFECT Pound Cake
Now that you know what can go wrong, let’s talk about how to make the most perfect cream cheese pound cake. The *TRICK* is a lot of mixing before you add the eggs.
- Mix, mix, mix: Beat the butter until creamy. Add the cream cheese, then beat the two until smooth. Get all the cream cheese lumps out. Beat in the sugar, then add the sour cream and vanilla. So far there’s been a lot of mixing and that’s ok!
- 1 egg at a time: Add the eggs 1 at a time, making sure each is incorporated before adding the next. When the eggs are room temperature, the mixer only needs a few turns and won’t over-mix them. Over-mixed batter = heavy-as-a-brick cake.
- Add dry ingredients: Add the dry ingredients right into the same mixing bowl.
- Pour into pan: Pour the batter into a generously greased 10-12 cup Bundt pan. This is totally not sponsored, but I absolutely adore Nordic Ware Bundt pans. Make sure you use one that holds 10-12 cups of batter. This one is also gorgeous! 🙂
- Bake: Bake the cream cheese pound cake at 325°F (163°C). Halfway through baking, loosely tent the cake with aluminum foil to prevent over-browning.
- Cool, then invert: Let the pound cool for about 2 hours in the pan, then invert onto a serving plate and cool completely before serving.
Serve with whipped cream, fresh berries, raspberry sauce, strawberry sauce, blueberry sauce, and/or homemade lemon curd. The topping from my pecan pie cheesecake would also be fantastic spooned over each slice. There’s a simplistic beauty about pound cake—it doesn’t need glaze, frosting, bells, or whistles.
4 Final Success Tips
Enough from me! Let me leave you with 4 tips before you get started.
- Follow the recipe. Use the ingredients and measurements listed.
- Bake low and slow. Pound cake is a large heavy cake and requires a cooler oven. Don’t be alarmed if your cake takes longer than 90 minutes.
- Bring all ingredients to room temperature before beginning. Room temperature ingredients promise a uniformly textured cake. Cold ingredients do not emulsify together and the pound cake won’t bake properly.
- Make sure each egg is mixed in before adding the next.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours
- Yield: serves 12-14
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This recipe produces a perfect cream cheese pound cake. After persistent recipe testing with many failures, I found the best ratio of ingredients to produce a moist, dense, and flavorful pound cake. Using 9 simple ingredients, this cream cheese pound cake recipe will be your new favorite. To prevent a ruined cake, follow the baking time and temperature closely. Learn from my mistake!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (340g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 8 ounce (226g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 2 and 1/2 cups (500g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (80g) sour cream, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 6 large eggs, at room temperature
- 3 cups (354g) cake flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- optional for serving: homemade whipped cream & fresh berries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Not 350°F. Generously grease a 10-12 cup Bundt pan with butter or nonstick spray.
- Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the butter on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the cream cheese and beat on high speed until completely smooth and combined, about 1 minute. Add the sugar and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute, then add the sour cream and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined and creamy. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a silicone spatula.
- On low speed, beat the eggs in 1 at a time allowing each to fully mix in before adding the next. Careful not to overmix after the eggs have been added. Once the 6th egg is combined, stop the mixer and add the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat on medium speed *just* until combined. Do not overmix. Using a silicone spatula or sturdy whisk, give the batter a final turn to make sure there are no lumps at the bottom of the bowl. The batter will be a little thick and very creamy.
- Pour/spoon batter evenly into prepared pan. Bang the pan on the counter once or twice to bring up any air bubbles. Bake for 75-95 minutes. Loosely tent the baking cake with aluminum foil halfway through bake time to ensure the surface does not over-brown. The key to pound cake is a slow and low bake time. Use a toothpick to test for doneness. Once it comes out completely clean, the pound cake is done. This is a large heavy cake so don’t be alarmed if it takes longer in your oven. If it needs longer, bake longer.
- Remove cake from the oven and allow to cool for 2 hours inside the pan. Then invert the slightly cooled pound cake onto a wire rack or serving dish. Allow to cool completely.
- Slice and serve with optional toppings like homemade whipped cream & fresh berries.
- Cover leftover cake tightly and store at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Wrap baked and cooled pound cake in 1-2 layers of plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. Allow to thaw in the plastic wrap & foil overnight in the refrigerator, then bring to room temperature before slicing and serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 10-12 Cup Bundt Pan | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Silicone Spatula | Whisk | Cooling Rack
- Loaf Pan: Pour the batter into two greased 9×5-inch loaf pans. Bake each at 325°F (163°C) for about 60 minutes. Or halve all of the ingredients to make one loaf.
- Cake Flour: For the best results, I strongly recommend cake flour. You can find it in the baking aisle and I have many more recipes using it. If you cannot get your hands on cake flour, you can make a DIY cake flour substitute.
- Almond Extract or Other Flavors: Along with the vanilla extract, mix in a little almond extract. This is optional, but it adds the most exceptional flavor! I usually use around 1 teaspoon of almond extract. Alternatively, use 1 teaspoon of lemon extract, orange extract, coconut extract, or any of your favorite flavors.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Heavy cream can be used instead of sour cream. And I use salted butter and don’t add salt. I have been making this cake for nearly forty-five years or more. One of my great Aunt’s gave me the recipe by showing me how to do it. I’d never seen it printed until today. She told me it was very expensive to make long time ago because cream cheese was very pricey. I’m 67 so it’s been many years.
I followed the recipe exactly. I ended up using your homemade cake flour. The cakes were made in two loaf pans and looked beautiful when they came out of the oven. However, about ten minutes or so into cooling, they fell. What could have happened? I’m wondering if since I made my own cake flour with cornstarch and regular flour if that was the problem. Please advice. The cake tastes okay but I can see a “layer” within the pieces that looks condensed. Thank you for your thoughts.
Hi Laura, thanks so much for giving this recipe a try! If the cakes sunk they’re likely undercooked and the middle is still too raw. If you try it again add a few minutes to your bake time and if you notice the tops getting brown before the center is finished you can cover loosely with foil.
I learned from my grandmother and my mother that if you walk around the kitchen too much or too hard while the cake is in the oven, it can fall. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s TRUE. Don’t let anyone walk in the kitchen while the cake is baking.
I’m having a problem with it not wanting to cook in the ring around the middle. Any suggestions?
Hi Bets! Do you mean like the photo of my cake disaster above– the very center not baking? I recommend simply keeping the pound cake in the oven for longer. Once I started baking the cake for much longer, it finally began cooking all the way through. Tent the baking cake with aluminum foil if you notice the top and sides browning too quickly.
It worked! Just as you said! This is only my 2nd attempt at a cake. My first cake was missing something and wasn’t nearly as moist as it should’ve been but this one was as perfect as it could be! Thank you!
Great recipe can’t wait to make the cake, will be printing and posting recipes to my desert board, and will
Be eagerly waiting for more of your recipe.
Scrumptious. Great pound cake recipe. 325 for 90 mins and a perfect, beautiful pound cake. Thank you.
For my first pound cake, I feel like I did a great job. Thank you for the detailed recipe :). The only thing I was wondering was how I can make the cake more moist?
Hi Nicole, It’s a large cake, so it’s easy to over-cook. An easy fix if you wish to try it again is to check it a bit sooner. Make sure you’re spooning and leveling your flour, too– too much flour could also dry out the cake.
This pound cake was incredible. I halved the recipe and made it in one 9×5 loaf pan. I accidentally misread the directions and had the oven at 350 for the first 15 minutes of baking, but quickly changed it to 325 when I realized it. And it still turned out perfectly fine! Honestly, the only pound cake I really remember is the frozen Sara Lee ones my parents loved. And this one is 10x better. The crumb is fantastic, it’s tight and small. It’s light but at the same time tense. My husband loved it and ate it plain. I loved it with some strawberry jam. I cut up the rest of it and wrapped each individually to freeze for later!
I just took this pound cake out of the pan and cut a slice to see how it tasted before bringing it over to my mom’s birthday tomorrow. WOW! I honestly don’t remember the last time I have baked something this good and I bake a lot. I practically inhaled the slice I cut and it will likely not be the last piece I have tonight. I used yogurt instead of sour cream since it’s what I already had. I also added a tsp of almond extract in addition to the two tsps of vanilla. This was relatively easy and SO worth it.
This cream cheese pound cake is wonderfully flavored dense , and smooth cake ! Enjoying in Kansas
Hi Sally
Would using super fine sugar versus regular granulated sugar make a difference in this recipe? Thanks for the great recipes and baking tips! I only started baking as a direct result of Covid-19 and your website has been awesome.
That should be fine, Amanda!
Thanks Sally. I baked the cake today and it came out so good! I was SO happy! 😀 (novice baker heheh). Question (this is more a preference) If I wanted to make it a tad less sweet, could I adjust the amount of sugar? Or would you advise against?
Hi Amanda, So happy you enjoyed the cake! The sugar is responsible for the texture and moisture as well as flavor, so keep in mind if you experiment with reducing it that the texture of the cake will be different.
I have made this pound cake several times and each time it has been great! My wife wanted me to see if I could do a strawberry pound cake. So I purred strawberries the way you do for your strawberry cake. I substituted the strawberry puree for the sour cream. The strawberry pound cake is really good. You know you are eating a pound cake with a sneaky strawberry flavor. Thank you for the great recipes.
I just made the perfect cream cheese pound cake, it was amazing.
I have a diabetic nephew and would love to make this cake for him, hace you ever made this recipe with stevia? Any suggestions ?
I baked this cake on Saturday for a family occasion. It came out really well even though I did not have a bundt pan. I use a tube pan. I found all the tips and tricks so helpful. I had to make my own cake flour, too. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I just made this recipe, it turned out perfect. Best recipe ever.
PERFECTION!!!!!! This will be my go to pound cake FOREVER!!!!!!
Hi Sally! I have made this cake 4 times. Today was the best taste. But I had a butter line. Do you know the reason? All of my wet ingredients are room temperature. I just want a perfect cake!
Hi Sharon, Do you mean a streak of wet ingredients when you cut open the cake? Be sure that your butter is softened only to room temperature and that it’s not too warm. This is what room temperature butter really means.
As usual this is absolutely delicious! I will be freezing this for company in a few weeks so I sliced a little off the top while cooling. Mmmmmmmm. . Great tips and directions. Thank you for so many lovely recipes.
I have made tons of pound cakes, eaten more than my share of them BUT this cake and directions are TOPS. I will throw out all the other pound cake recipes.
I am IN LOVE with it. Moist tasty and absolutely perfection.
Also using cake flour makes all the difference in the texture.
Thanks for a perfect pound cake !
Southern girl in Nova Scotia
If I were to add peaches to this cake would I need to do anything different ?
Hi Kristin, I haven’t tried it but I fear the cake will be much too wet. Instead, I recommend my peach Bundt cake.
Hi. The inside of my cake had holes in it and had parts that looked undercooked. What caused the holes?
Hi Laurie, tunnels and holes in cakes are typically formed due to over-mixing. Too much air makes its way into the batter and it’s trapped inside. If you decide to try the recipe again, follow the recipe closely and avoid over-mixing if you can.
Made your cake which is perfect and beautiful in all of your pictures . When I took the cake out of the oven I was excited but as it cooled the cake fell a lot. Then after cooling the cake had streaks that lookEd like not completely cooked. I am an experienced baker and have had trouble with lb cakes lately have read and tried Everything. So disappointing Not to be able to make a good lb cake.
Hi Martha, If it looked undercooked then that is an easy fix for next time! The key to pound cake is a slow and low bake time, be sure your oven is set to 325 and not 350. Use a toothpick to test for doneness. Don’t be alarmed if it takes longer in your oven. If it needs longer, bake longer!
Excellent recipe, excellent descriptions. Thank you so much.
Great recipe! I’m in the middle of testing out a true pound cake, which is one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. I’ve found out some interesting things along the way. Since eggs are variable in size & weight, even for individual hens, I discovered that using a mixture of different egg sizes is what works best. I always have at least a dozen each of large, extra large, and jumbo on hand anyway, and I discovered that the perfect ratio for getting it as close as possible to one pound is 3 large, 3 extra, and 2 jumbo! It makes the finished product a bit on the pricey side, but it’s not like I’m going to be baking a pound cake a week for the rest of my life! I usually share my baked goods with family, friends, and coworkers anyway.
I have never baked a pound cake in my life. When I saw this recipe I knew that was about to change. I carefully followed the recipe exactly as stated. It baked up beautifully and smelled wonderful. My family couldn’t wait 2 hours for it to cool so after 30 minutes we tipped it out. A few strawberries and some whipped cream and we were all in heaven. This was absolutely the best pound cake I have ever eaten!!!!! . Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
It is perfect ❣️ We love it. The recipe is a little much for my bundt pan. However, it baked just fine and I didn’t mind having to cut off the extra that spilled over. Next time I’ll put some in a small bowl and bake it. Thank you so much, I will be baking this often.
This came out perfect! I actually had to mix everything by hand since I’m staying with relatives who never bake and don’t have a blender. The texture is soft and light, and the cake is simply delicious. I would have liked it with a little less sugar, but it’s my go-to for pound cake going forward!
Can I use this recipe for cakelets?
You can! Or see my recipe for Mini Vanilla Pound Cakes.
I’m going to make this tomorrow…was wondering if chocolate chips would work in this recipe? Will they sink? Should I use mini size chips?
Hi Tracie, Yes, you can definitely add chocolate chips to this pound cake batter. I recommend 1 and 1/2 cups.
Wow! I followed your step by step directions and have a perfect pound cake! Very tender and moist…best pound cake I’ve ever made! Husband loves it….plan to use for strawberry shortcake tonight! Thanks for sharing, this is a keeper …. I will be making this again!
If using a loaf pan, do you still need to tent it at half way through?
I usually do, yes.