Vanilla Pound Cake

5 from 3 votes

Published Oct 30, 2020

Updated Nov 01, 2024

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.

Vanilla Pound Cake: buttery, tender, sweet, insanely delicious pound cake! This moist pound cake is easy to make and only requires one bowl! It is perfect for breakfast, snacking, or dessert!

Pound Cakes are my favorite cakes! There’s just something about their simplicity that makes them shine. No frosting is needed. No need to decorate the cake!

With pound cakes just bake them and they are ready to eat! If you want to take it further you could make a simple glaze and pour over them but I prefer my best pound cakes without the glaze. They are so good on their own! When making this recipe, you will surely want to go for a second slice!

Vanilla Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients For Vanilla Pound Cake
Recipe Variations
Substitutions
How To Make Vanilla Pound Cake From Scratch
Tips For Making Perfect Pound Cake
Why Is It Called Pound Cake?
How Many Eggs Is A Pound?
An Updated Pound Cake Recipe
What Does A Pound Cake Taste Like?
Tools for Vanilla Pound Cake (affiliate)
Watch How To Make Vanilla Pound Cake
Also Check Out These Recipes:
Serving
Vanilla Pound Cake Recipe

Pound Cake on cutting board with some slices.

Vanilla Pound Cake Recipe

This perfect Pound Cake is irresistibly buttery and so moist! I love it with a steaming cup of tea. It just makes my day better!

For this classic vanilla pound cake, I used my easy recipe for homemade vanilla extract and the flavor is amazing! You could use any vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste you have on hand. Or even vanilla essence would work as well.

Also, if you would like to try other flavors of pound cake check out my recommendations for different flavors below.

Also, check out my insanely good Southern Lemon Pound Cake Recipe, Old Fashioned Fresh Apple Cake Recipe, and Pineapple Upside Down Pound Cake.

Ingredients For Vanilla Pound Cake

You need 8 simple ingredients for vanilla pound cake. (See the full recipe below for all ingredients and measurements.) Here are some of the most important ingredients and some notes about them:

Butter: For best results, use unsalted butter. Without butter, the cake would be crumbly, dry, and much more bland. This ingredient also gives the cake its lovely buttery flavor.
Large Eggs: Eggs provide much-needed structure and binding for the cake. They also add richness. The egg whites and egg yolks are both equally important, which is why the recipe calls for whole eggs.
Flour and Sugar: Flour and sugar are the foundation of the recipe. You just need regular old granulated sugar and plain all-purpose flour for this pound cake!
Baking Powder: This leavening agent is critical since it helps the pound cake rise when it bakes, preventing an overly dense cake. This delicious cake should be somewhat dense, but not so much that it lacks a tender crumb.

If you have a medically restrictive diet (or follow a low calorie diet) and need to watch your personal consumption, you can check out the nutrition info for the recipe below, which will help you track your daily values.

Vanilla Pound Cake Slices Piled on each other

Recipe Variations

One of the best things about pound cake is that it takes on other flavors quite well. Try to switch up this classic pound cake recipe by adding the following:

Add orange zest and juice for orange pound cake. (Reduce the whole milk by half to make room for the orange juice.) You can also make an orange simple syrup to soak the cake with before the cake cools.
Add lime zest and juice for lime pound cake. (Reduce the milk by half to make room for the orange juice.)
Add lemon zest and juice or lemon extract for lemon pound cake. (Reduce the milk by half to make room for the juice.)
Fold in blueberries for blueberry pound cake.
Add chocolate chips for chocolate chip pound cake.
Add dried fruits for fruit cake.
Add a spoonful of sour cream for some extra moisture and tang!

Substitutions

Vanilla Extract: As mentioned, you can use vanilla essence or vanilla bean paste. You can also use almond extract.
Butter: If you use salted butter, omit the salt from the recipe.
Flour: I suggest using all-purpose flour. However, you can use cake flour if you don’t mind a slight texture change.
Milk: Whole milk works best, but you can use skim milk, almond milk, or other milks if needed.

How To Make Vanilla Pound Cake From Scratch

Making pound cake from scratch is quite easy. I have a step-by-step guide with photos here so you can see the simple steps. The recipe is made using the creaming process, so there are no tricky baking techniques required!

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and sugar until the butter mixture is light and fluffy. If using a handheld mixer, you can use the beaters/whisk attachment. If you use the bowl of a stand mixer, a paddle attachment can work. Start with a low speed and slowly increase to medium speed.

Hand holding electric beater beating butter and sugar

2. In the same large bowl, add milk, vanilla extract and beat to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula to make sure nothing is sticking. You can also scrape the bottom of the bowl.

3. Your cracked eggs should be separate in a medium bowl. Add eggs one at a time and beat to combine.

4. Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, table or kosher salt) and beat to combine. I would start with half of the flour mixture then add the remaining cups of flour after some mixing. At this point, you don’t need to beat much air into it because it already has enough. Be careful not to overmix because it will cause extra air bubbles and overwork the gluten.

Flour in mixing bowl added to other ingredients

5. Pour the wet batter into a greased and floured loaf pan. You can also use parchment paper to line the pan if you wish. The most important thing is that there is some type of protection so the cake easily releases.

Process shot of hand pouring batter into a greased loaf pan

6. Bake in the preheated oven for the suggested baking time until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. If you think it needs more bake time, give it a few more minutes, but watch it carefully. You don’t want to dry it out and loose the moist crumbs.

Process shot of pound cake baking in oven

Also check out this recipe for Salted Caramel Cake.

Tips For Making Perfect Pound Cake

Here are tips for making the best vanilla pound cake:

1. Use room temperature ingredients. Make sure the eggs, milk, and butter are all at room temperature. This will help them mix properly with the batter. Here are some tips on how to bring cake ingredients fast to room temperature:

To bring cold butter quickly to room temperature, place 1 stick of butter in the microwave and heat it up for 10 seconds. You only need about 10 seconds for the butter to soften. If you overheat it, it starts to melt.
To bring cold eggs to room temperature, place the eggs completely submerged in a bowl of lukewarm water.
To bring cold milk to room temperature place one cup of milk in the microwave and heat it up for 10 seconds. Then stir the milk and use. Stirring the milk helps mix up the portions that are slightly warm with those that are cold.

2. Don’t overmix the batter. As with any cake batter, do not overmix the batter for pound cake. Mix everything to be just combined then stop mixing once you stop seeing particles of flour. Overmixing cake batter will cause the gluten in the flour to toughen, leading to a tough cake.

3. Serving: A great way to serve this buttery cake is with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or fresh fruit and fresh berries! This loaf cake is also amazing with coffee or tea. To store it, keep it in an airtight container or tightly wrap it with plastic wrap. If you already have individual slices, it’s crucial to wrap them to prevent drying them out.

4. I suggest making this in a loaf pan like I did. However, if you would like to make it in a bundt pan, you can increase the recipe to fit a 12-cup bundt pan. Increase each ingredient by 25% to fit a 10-inch bundt pan. (For instance, the butter amount would go from 1 cup to 1 1/4 cups). Keep in mind the baking time will likely be longer!

Why Is It Called Pound Cake?

It is called pound cake because the original recipe from Northern Europe is made with one pound of every ingredient. To make a traditional Pound Cake you need one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, one pound of eggs and one pound of flour.

For those who measure by grams one pound is equal to almost 500 grams.

How Many Eggs Is A Pound?

It takes about 8 eggs to make one pound.

An Updated Pound Cake Recipe

This vanilla pound cake recipe feeds off the traditional, old recipe as it calls for about half a pound of the main ingredients which are butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. However, I added some other ingredients to make the cake even better.

The added ingredients are baking powder, salt, milk, and vanilla extract.