Best Vanilla Pound Cake recipe, buttery, flavorful, moist cake. Simple & Easy recipe to give you a perfectly soft, rich, delicious traditional homemade vanilla pound loaf cake.
Moist Vanilla Pound, Loaf Cake. Here's one of my all-time favorite cake recipes. It's simply delicious, full of vanilla flavor.
The texture is not quite as dense as a regular pound cake, but a little fluffier, and it is lovely and moist with a delicious golden top.
For this recipe, I've adjusted the traditional ingredient ratios, so when you bake this cake, it will not be quite as dense, and in order for it to be moist, I've added milk.
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Some recipes use buttermilk or even cream cheese. In my opinion, there isn't any need for that, milk will make your cake tender, moist and give you a nice fine crumb.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it called pound cake?
The traditional classic pound cake recipe can be traced back as far as the 18th Century. It was called a pound cake because the 4 ingredients called for 1 pound in weight of each. That would be pretty easy to remember!
Note, the pound cake is not the actual weight of the cake. that would be around 4 pounds in weight. Because of the name, you will often see the baking pans called '1 lb loaf pans', and this size will be a perfect fit for your pound cake.
What is pound cake made of?
So the 4 ingredients which traditionally make up a classic pound cake are flour, eggs, butter, and sugar, and the ratio is 1 pound of each.
What does pound cake taste like?
This moist tender, buttery pound cake is rich and dense. It's decadent because of the amount of butter used, and that, combined with the sugar and vanilla will give you a taste similar to a simple yellow cake, but this is certainly more extravagant and rich!
It makes for a great breakfast, tea time or snack cake, perhaps serve for an afternoon tea party, add a slice to a lunch box, take to a party, or simply enjoy a slice or three with a lovely cup of tea or coffee.
This vanilla pound cake is freezer friendly too so if you wanted to eat half right away and freeze half, then it will be perfect!
We've got a huge variety of delicious different pound cake recipes so be sure to check them out. There's a flavor for everyone!
We've also got a really easy Raspberry Pound Cake with a simple White Chocolate topping on our sister site, Newbie In The Kitchen. Tangy and sweet and so delicious!
This is definitely the best pound cake recipe! I've taken several years of tweaking and adjusting to get this cake to be the perfect pound cake!
If you enjoy homemade, flavorful cakes, then this cake is going to become a keeper for you.
The ingredients are most likely available as part of your pantry staples so you will more than likely be able to make this cake without any planning, and of course, you can't beat a good made from scratch cake!
I've kept this recipe very simple and easy. However, we often get questions from our readers so I thought I'd answer them here. I know some of you are beginners to baking, so hopefully, you'll find these answers helpful!
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my pound cake crack on top?
This is normal! Pound cakes will almost always crack on the top. As you will see from the photos, there is always a distinct crack down the middle of the baked cake.
When the cake is in the oven, the outside of the cake cooks first, and this makes the batter rise up in the middle. It's a characteristic of a good pound cake.
Some people don't like seeing the crack, so if that's you, feel free to cover the crack with a drizzle of frosting, or in you wanted to bake using a bundt pan instead of a loaf pan, when the cake is turned out, the cracks will be underneath the bundt cake.
How do you know when a pound cake is done?
In step 6. of the instructions, you need to use a skewer or metal cake tester. Insert the tester into the thickest part of the cake.
I usually stick the tester in the very center and push down about halfway, take the tester out and if it comes out clean, the cake is done.
If the tester comes out with wet batter stuck to it, then you know the middle of the cake isn't cooked, so leave the cake for a bit longer, at 5-minute intervals until the cake tester comes out clean.
Below is a photo of using a cake tester so you can see what it looks like.
Do you grease a pan for pound cake?
The simple answer is YES! Or, if you don't want to grease the pan, you need to use a paper-pound cake liner, which you can often buy in packs. I have a pack of these which I use for many of my pound cakes, especially when I am making them for freezing or to give for friends
We've also got a great guide if you'd like to learn how to line a loaf pan using parchment paper.
If you don't have any parchment or greaseproof paper, you can use our homemade magic pan release recipe. It's really simple!
Why is my pound cake heavy?
Pound cakes are traditionally heavy by nature due to the ratio of ingredients. After all, there's a lot of butter in a pound cake.
When you have baked the cake and taken it from the oven to cool, it will naturally sink once it comes into contact with the cooler air. Once the cake sinks, (and sometimes this can be a lot), the cake will become denser and heavier because some of the air is lost.
The best way to try and avoid this is during the creaming method, in step 3 of the instructions. The creaming method is very important when making a pound cake.
It takes a little time, but you need to beat the butter and sugar for 5 - 7 minutes until you see the batter color turn a very pale yellow, almost white and fluffy in texture.
I always make sure the butter is at room temperature before I start the recipe. If the butter is too cold, it is very hard to get a light and fluffy texture from creaming. That means the sugar has dissolved and is fully incorporated with the butter.
Once that is done, you need to add the other ingredients gently and fold in the flour at the end to try and keep as much air as possible in the cake batter so at least when it goes in the oven, it is less likely to sink.
Once you've tried this recipe, I am sure you will make it time and time again. So here's the recipe, and enjoy our Moist Vanilla Pound, Loaf Cake!
Ingredients you'll need
- Plain / All purpose flour (sieved)
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Butter - softened
- Regular sugar
- Milk
- Eggs (lightly beaten)
- Vanilla Extract
Instructions
1. Heat oven to 170c, 325F. Grease and line your baking tin. See here for how to line.
** Please note, if using a Bundt tin, be sure to grease it very well as it can be hard to get the cake out of such a shaped tin.
Top tip
Use our Homemade Pan Release to grease your pan.
2. Get all your ingredients ready, i.e sieve the flour and add the salt and baking powder to the flour etc.
3. Start with making the cake batter by creaming the butter and sugar until a pale light color.
4. Slowly add the beaten eggs to the mixer, on a low-speed setting, a bit at a time. If the mixture starts to curdle or split, add a spoonful of your sieved flour, keep on adding the eggs, and a bit of flour if necessary until all the eggs are added. Add the Vanilla Extract.
5. Add half the milk with half of the flour, keeping the mixer on a slow speed. Once combined, add the remaining milk and gently fold in the remaining flour until combined.
6. Transfer the cake mixture to the greased and lined loaf tin. Then place in the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 5 minutes
Please do a test if the cake is done by using a skewer and poke it in the middle to see that it comes out clean. Every oven is different and cook times may vary a little.
7. Have a cup of tea!
8. When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and leave in the cake tin until cool enough to transfer to a cooling rack.
Allow to cool. Store in an airtight container, and there you have our Moist Vanilla Pound, Loaf Cake
We'd love to hear from you and what you thought of our post. Did you make any changes or add some other goodies? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and happy cooking!
Recipe Card
Homemade Vanilla Pound, Loaf Cake, classic, made from scratch easy recipe.
Best Pound Cake recipe, buttery, flavorful, moist cake|Simple & Easy recipe to give you a perfect soft, rich, delicious traditional vanilla pound cake.
Ingredients
- 225 g or 1 3/4 cups Plain / All purpose flour (sieved)
- 2 Teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 Teaspoon salt
- 175 g or 3/4 cup softened butter
- 150 g or 3/4 cups regular sugar
- 2/3 Cup or 150 ml Milk
- 2 Large eggs (lightly beaten)
- 1 & 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Heat oven to 170c, 325F. Grease and line your baking tin.
- Get all your ingredients ready, i.e sieve the flour, and add the salt and baking powder to the flour etc.
- Start with making the cake batter by creaming the butter and sugar until a pale light colour.
- Slowly add the beaten eggs to the mixer, on a low speed setting, a bit at a time. If the mixture starts to curdle or split, add a spoonful of your sieved flour, keep on adding the eggs, and a bit of flour if necessary, until all the eggs are added. Add the Vanilla Extract.
- Add half the milk with half of the flour, keeping the mixer on a slow speed. Once combined, add the remaining milk and gently fold in the remaining flour until combined.
- Transfer the cake mixture to the greased and lined loaf tin. Then place in the oven for 1 hr to 1 hr and 5 minutes.
- *** Please do test if the cake is done by using a skewer and poke it in the middle to see that it comes out clean. Every oven is different and cook times may vary a little.
- Have a cup of tea!
- When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and leave in the cake tin until cool enough to transfer to a cooling rack.
- Allow to cool. Store in an airtight container.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 10 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 311Total Fat: 16gSaturated Fat: 9gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 94mgSodium: 295mgCarbohydrates: 38gFiber: 1gSugar: 20gProtein: 5g
Loaf Cake Recipes
Here's a delicious selection of pound or loaf cake recipes for you to enjoy
Tiramisu Pound Cake, a soft and delicious pound cake with all the flavors of a Tiramisu! It's even got a mascarpone frosting. This will go fast so be sure to make two!
A simple, easy chocolate loaf cake recipe is moist, rich and chocolatey. Perfect for new cooks and is a go to basic recipe
Caribbean Rum Cake, an easy delicious recipe! The cake is soft and moist, packed with rum infused raisins and makes for a great Christmas time cake.
Strawberry Pound Cake. A delicious recipe bursting with fresh strawberries. Soft, moist and perfect with a morning coffee or to take to friends!
Easy Lemon French Yogurt Cake. Delicious tangy lemon, soft and moist, incredibly easy made from scratch cake recipe, great as a tea time snack
Coffee Pecan Pound Cake is a lovely tasting, moist cake with a perfect combination of coffee flavor and texture from the pecans.
Easy Strawberry French Yogurt Cake.
Delicious juicy strawberries, soft and moist, incredibly easy made from scratch cake recipe, great as a tea time snack
Moist Vanilla Pound, Loaf Cake is such a wonderful tasting cake, soft, and delicious!
Easy Blueberry and Lemon Crumble Cake.
Deliciously soft & moist cake packed with blueberries and a hint of lemon. Topped with a crumble topping. Easiest simple cake recipe ever!
Easy Raspberry Pound Cake. A delicious classic pound cake recipe bursting with fresh raspberries. Soft, moist and tangy sweet. Topped with a simple chocolate topping. Easy to follow instructions
Coconut and Lime Pound Cake, a deliciously soft coconut cake with a splash of tangy lime.
Moist Coconut PoundCake Recipe. Light, soft, and oh sooooo delicious!
Blueberry Coconut Pound Cake, a deliciously soft coconut cake with a sprinkling of juicy blueberries.
Moist Lemon or Orange Pound Loaf, a wonderful soft and delicious cake using freshly squeezed juice and zest. Bake in a loaf or bundt pan. You choose!
Easy Cranberry and White Chocolate Pound Cake. This is a delicious soft and moist pound cake with a wonderful white chocolate flavor and added lovely cranberries. Freezer friendly and easy to make. Perfect for Thanksgiving and Christmas
Moist Pecan Almond Loaf Cake. The flavor combo is just divine!
Easy Cinnamon Swirl Loaf. A moist, soft, and delicious tasting loaf cake, perfect with a morning coffee! This is a wonderful no yeast, quick bread recipe, full of flavor, soft and fluffy, and really easy to make too.
Moist Caramel and Apple Loaf .... ABSOLUTELY Delicious!
Easy Cranberry and Orange Carrot Cake! A delicious cake made from scratch with a simple orange glaze. Fluffy, soft and bursting with the flavors! Perfect breakfast, brunch or to have with a coffee!
Blueberry Lemon Pound Cake, a delicious soft and moist loaf bursting with juicy blueberries! Perfect with a cup of tea
Moist Coffee Loaf Cake! This is an absolutely delicious soft, moist cake, easy to make and goes perfect with a lovely cup of coffee too!
Banana and Walnut Loaf Cake. A delicious, very easy and moist cake, and smells so good when it's baking too!
Lemon and Poppy Seed Loaf.
This is truly a delightful cake. The flavors are gentle, the cake is soft and moist and of course, looks so pretty with the addition of poppy seeds sprinkled throughout the cake
Moist Chocolate Almond Pound Cake. Delicious, rich chocolate cake with added melted chocolate and ground almonds to take this cake to another level of deliciousness!
Spiced Pecan Carrot Cake! This has got to be the World's best carrot cake.
Fluffy, soft and bursting with the flavors of Fall! Perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays!
Dolly's Chocolate Chip Cake. Very easy recipe and a family favorite. Makes two loaves so perfect for gifts or freezing too.
Stephanie
says:is the amount of flour specified in the recipe before or after being sieved?
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Stephanie, it’s before sieving.
depatra
says:Baked mine for 55 minutes at 160 degrees centigrade. It came out moist,fluffy with nice texture. Wish it had more buttery flavour though, but then again I didn’t use a good butter brand. Will definitely try with a better quality butter next time like Lescure or Golden Churn. Thanks for the recipe!
Mr
says:Sooo good! I changed the milk for coconut silk milk unsweetend and it was delicious. Fluffy and good! Thank you!!
Renata Klasova
says:So today I baked it and unfortunately even I did all as You wrote the cake did not rise up..the taste was nice, but not sure what I did wrong as I did folow the recipe. Well I did try and next time something else…
Hannah
says:I had the same problem. Baking powder expired !
Monica
says:I made this today and it came out extremely compacted and dense. Nowhere near crumbly. I followed directions to the T.
Would being at a higher altitude effect the outcome? Please advise.
Sharon
says:I tried the recipe and its loved by all. Thanks!
Sharon
says:I made this today and it tastes great but didn’t rise and has an awful texture. went exactly by the directions so I dont know what happened.
Sharon
says:I guess I should say it a weird texture. not cake-like
Janice Carroll
says:I made this tonight ..:my family liked it but , it has more of a cornbread consistency. Followed directions to the T
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Sharon, thanks for writing in and I’m sorry to hear your cake didn’t turn out right. I’ve never had any feedback about the texture being strange, and I’m scratching my head as to why this could have happened. A couple of things which come to mind are that you may have ‘split’ the batter when you added the eggs/milk. This can end up giving you a very grainy texture, almost like a curdled texture. The only other thing I can think of at this time is if the eggs or milk were not fresh. I can’t imagine you would use anything which would be ‘off’ but it is worth mentioning just in case that could be the cause.
Otherwise, all I can say is for you to try it another time when you are able. It really is a very good recipe and the one I use as a basic recipe for all my pound cakes and then go and add other flavors/ ingredients, so I can say 100% it is a (or should be!) a fail safe recipe.
Please do come back and let me know if you do try it again.
Dee
says:Can I ask if I can do this in a bunt pan instead of loaf pan. Would love to try this recipe
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Dee, yes, of course you can use a bundt pan. The cook time will be a little less so I would suggest checking around 10 minutes before the stated cook time to see if the cake has cooked through.
Nikki
says:Would this be with salted or unsalted butter?
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Nikki, I used unsalted in this recipe, but it doesn;t make any noticeable difference so please use what you prefer. It’s a lovely cake so I hope you will really enjoy it too!
Diana H. Ortiz
says:Hi, can I substitute cake flour for the all purpose flour??? I like to use cake flour in my cake recipes, it makes the cakes moister and fluffier. If I can, can you tell me how much??? Thank you for your respond.
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Diana, yes, you could use cake flour. I haven’t made this recipe using it, but I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t. You don’t need to change the quantity. The recipe as it is will already give you quite a fine crumb and will be fluffy and moist, due to the liquid added, so I would recommend to try using all purpose just this once so you can see for yourself! (It really is a lovely cake!)
Diana
says:Thank you for your quick respond and I will be trying your way, with all purpose flour. I will let you know how it came out.
Lovefoodies
says:Please enjoy Diana and do come back and let us know!
Betty
says:I don’t have a gas stove , I have a reg electric stove so what temp would I bake this at
It would help if you added things like this to all ur recipes
Now I can’t bake til I hear from you
Plz pm me so I can get this in the oven
Thank You Betty
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Betty, all the temperatures are in step 1 of the recipe, so for electric, it will be 350F or 160C, depending on which country you live in. Hope that helps!
Susan
says:Live in high altitude. How would you adjust the recipe
Vasanti Pereira
says:Just wondering if the sugar is too much?
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Vasanti, you can reduce the sugar if you wish. The amount in the recipe is not too sweet, but adjust to your taste. Hope that helps!
Cari
says:If I’d like to make a whole cake, should I double the recipe?
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Cari, there is enough batter for an 8 or 9 inch deep round baking pan, or 2 shallow ones of the same size. No need to increase the recipe. Hope that helps!
Paula
says:How about a 7×7 inch square pan? I loved this recipe, thank you so much!
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Paula, yes!! That works. Just check the cake after around 45 minutes and take it from there!
Enjoy!
Tish
says:One list of ingredients says 1 cup of sugar and the other says 1 1/2 cups. Which one is right.
Lovefoodies
says:Hi Tish, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have edited it to read correctly now. The sugar quantity should be 1 cup. Please enjoy. It is one of my all time favorite cakes!
chimdi
says:Just tried it and its yummy. Everyone loves it
Thanks
Gretchen graham
says:Best vanilla pound ever! Keep the recipes coming luv it!