Cream Cheese Pound Cake is the ultimate moist Bundt cake recipe with a melt in your mouth rich, tangy, buttery flavor. Great for brunch!
If you’ve tried Sour Cream Pound Cake you know what a difference an ingredient or or two can make in a Vanilla Pound Cake! The cream cheese makes a classic Cake Recipe extra rich, extra moist, and gives it a delicious lightly tangy flavor. It’s the perfect shareable dessert to enjoy with your family or bring to a nice brunch.
Table of contents
Sabrina’s Cream Cheese Pound Cake
This delicious version of pound cake adds cream cheese, sour cream, and buttermilk for the ultimate tangy, melt-in mouth, moist, soft cake crumb. The blend of vanilla pound cake’s traditional, buttery-sweet flavor and the tang will make it your new favorite cake for any occasion.
Another reason you will love this cake is that it’s really not that complicated. There are a few extra ingredients but it is still mixed up, baked and ready to serve in just about 2 hours.
Ingredients
- Butter: Use 1 cup unsalted butter to add moisture, fat, and flavor to your cake batter. It’s important to let the butter soften at room temperature before starting the recipe so you can easily cream the butter and sugar.
- Sugar: At the same time you add the butter, you’ll mix in 2 ¾ cups sugar. Regular granulated white sugar works best for this recipe. Pound cake has a higher percentage of butter and sugar than other cakes.
- Cream cheese: This recipe is different from traditional pound cake because it adds cream cheese and a couple of other ingredients. Let 8 ounces of cream cheese soften before adding it to the rich batter.
- Buttermilk: Along with the cream cheese, you’ll add ¼ cup buttermilk. Buttermilk adds an important liquid ingredient to keep the batter from being too thick. It’s also acidic and acts as a leavening agent.
- Sour cream: Sour cream is another rich and tangy addition. It makes the cake soft and moist, so every bite is decadent perfection.
- Eggs: Just like pound cakes require a lot of sugar and butter, they also use a lot of eggs. Add 6 large eggs to the batter to create the traditional dense texture.
- Vanilla extract: 1 teaspoon vanilla enhances the sweetness of the recipe and gives the cake a cozy, familiar flavor.
- Flour: Cake flour is a better option than all-purpose flour. Its lighter consistency keeps the recipe from feeling too heavy.
- Baking powder: Baking powder acts as a leavening agent along with the buttermilk to help the cake rise and create a tender crumb.
Kitchen Tools & Equipment
- Bund pan: Pound cakes are best baked in a bundt pan. The tube down the center of the pan ensures that the cake heats equally in the middle and outside as it cooks. This is important for dense cake recipes like this one, which are more likely to bake unevenly. A 10-inch bundt cake pan is ideal. You could also use a plain tube pan to bake this cake recipe.
- Stand Mixer: Use a stand mixer to easily combine the thick cake batter. The paddle attachment will work well to blend these simple ingredients.
- Mixing bowl: You’ll also need a separate mixing bowl to whisk together the flour and baking powder before adding the dry ingredients to the batter.
How to Make
- Prep time
Preheat the oven temperature to 325 degrees. Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with nonstick baking spray.
- Combine wet ingredients
Add the butter and granulated sugar to your stand mixer. Mix at medium speed for 4 minutes until the butter mixture is light and fluffy. Add the softened cream cheese, buttermilk, and sour cream and continue to beat until the creamy ingredients are well combined. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract.
- Add dry ingredients
Add the flour and baking powder to a separate bowl and whisk them together. Then add the flour mixture to the cake batter, ½ cup at a time, mixing slowly until just combined.
- Baking time
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and spread evenly. Bake the pound cake for 75-80 minutes.
- Cool and serve
Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool for at least 15-20 minutes before inverting the bundt pan to remove the cake. Dust the Cream Cheese Pound Cake with powdered sugar and enjoy.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
Pound Cake:
- 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 2 3/4 cups sugar
- 8 ounces cream cheese , softened
- 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 6 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
To Finish:
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
Pound Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Spray a 10" bundt cake pan or plain tube pan with baking spray.
- To your stand mixer add the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
- Add in the cream cheese, buttermilk and sour cream and beat until well combined.
- Add the eggs one at a time until well mixed.
- Add in the vanilla extract.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.
- Add in ½ cup of the flour mixture at a time until just combined.
- Pour into bundt cake pan and spread evenly.
- Bake for 75-80 minutes.
- Cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan and cooling completely.
To Finish:
- Dust with powdered sugar.
Nutrition
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Chef’s Note: Serving a Bundt Cake
One of the reasons I love making a bundt cake is because it’s pretty much ready to serve as soon as you take it out of the pan. Just let it cool for about 10 minutes then dust it with powdered sugar and add some fresh berries and fruit. It doesn’t need frosting or sauces, which makes it a great cake to serve for brunch like you would coffee cake.
I will say, you do need to let your cake cool for at least 15-20 minutes before you remove it from the pan. Steam gets trapped in the dense moist cake and you want it to release slowly so your cake doesn’t break apart. If you try to flip your pan right out of the oven, a bunch of hot wet air is going to push through the cake crumbs and your cake will crumble in places.
Can this be made ahead of time?
If you want to bake this recipe in advance, follow the instructions as usual. Then, let the Cream Cheese Pound Cake cool to room temperature and carefully wrap it in plastic wrap and foil. The cake can stay frozen for up to 3 months before you defrost and serve it.
Nutritional Facts
How to Store
- Store: If you have any leftover bundt cake or don’t plan to serve the recipe immediately, you can keep it for later. Wrap the moist cake in plastic wrap or place pieces in an airtight container. Kept sealed, it will stay good at room temperature for 3-4 days.
- Freeze: You can keep this pound cake in the freezer for up to 3 months. Cool it completely then wrap it in two layers of plastic wrap then in a layer of foil. Let the cake thaw in the fridge before serving.
Toppings for Pound Cake
- Fruit: Serve the cake with fresh berries or juicy fruit. Add a tart fruit sauce like Raspberry Sauce as a nice drizzle over the cake. It also goes great with a simple sprinkle of lemon zest or orange zest.
- Ice Cream: The vanilla flavor goes great with classic French Vanilla Ice Cream but you could also switch it up with fruity flavors like Strawberry Ice Cream.
- Whipped Cream: Freshly made Whipped Cream is light and sweet, and it easily makes the PERFECT addition to any dessert. It’s ready in under 5 minutes with only 3 ingredients!
- Frosting: If you want to make this cake extra special, you can add a thick icing drizzle or pipe on a favorite frosting. I recommend my Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting so you get extra tang plus a bit of warm spice to break up the richness.
Frequent Questions
Classic Pound cake is made with 1 pound of sugar, 1 pound of butter, 1 pound of flour, and 1 pound of eggs. These measurements differ from regular cake, resulting in a more dense cake recipe.
This could happen if you remove the cake from the oven before it’s fully baked. Wait until the cake has a golden brown crust and is baked to the center before removing it from the oven. You can test this with a toothpick.
While you can use low-fat or reduced-fat cream cheese, it may affect the texture and flavor of the cake. Full-fat cream cheese provides the best results for a rich and moist cake.
Variations
- Glaze: Top your cake recipe with a vanilla or lemon glaze for extra moisture and flavor. Make a glaze with powdered sugar and milk (or heavy cream), add the milk a tablespoon at a time until it is thin enough to drizzle.
- Lemon Pound cake: For a bright summer flavor, add a bit of lemon juice and fresh lemon zest to the cake batter.
- Chocolate chip pound cake: Add some chocolate morsels into this vanilla cake! Mix 1 cup mini chocolate chips into the Cream Cheese Pound Cake batter
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