Sour Cream Pound Cake

This post was created as in partnership with Imperial Sugar. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

This Sour Cream Pound Cake is super flavorful, buttery, moist, and dense in the best way as only pound cake can be. It’s delicious it’s own or topped with macerated strawberries and cream, other seasonal berries or fruit, or lemon curd – no need for frosting or a sweet glaze with this one!

I love pound cake. It’s such an unpretentious dessert. There aren’t any tricky techniques or decorating skills requiring a steady hand and patience. And it’s wonderful butter-sugar-vanilla flavor is perfection with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream and berries.

This sour cream pound cake is similar to my favorite two egg cake that I use for strawberry shortcake, except sour cream pound cake is more dense and buttery, and not quite as sweet.

Why is it called Pound Cake?

Classic pound cake is a southern dessert that originated in the 1700’s. It gets its name from the traditional pound cake recipe that uses 1 pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

This sour cream pound cake variation is a slight adaptation of the original recipe. I love how the sour cream gives extra depth of flavor and makes this pound cake recipe even more moist and rich than the original.

Delicious Ways to Eat Pound Cake

Having a classic pound cake recipe in your back pocket is a useful baking skill because there are so many ways to dress it up for any occasion. We love topping it with berries and sweetened whipped cream. But here are some additional creative ways to eat pound cake to get you thinking:

• Slice the pound cake and dip it in a cinnamon-spiced egg batter laced with vanilla extract and grill it up for pound cake french toast for breakfast.
• Grill slices of pound cake and stone fruit like peaches for a simple but elevated summer dessert that looks as wonderful as it tastes.
• Make a pound cake ice cream sandwich by scooping your favorite ice cream flavor between two thin slices of pound cake.
• Cut up the pound cake and layer it in a bowl with berries and whipped cream for an easy and tasty trifle.  This is a particularly good solution if you have trouble with your pound cake coming out of the pan. Which you won’t, because I’m going to tell you how to solve that little problem-o.

Tips for Making Sour Cream Pound Cake

• Use room temperature ingredients.  I fought against this baking advice for years but once I finally embraced it, the texture of all my cakes improved! Amazing how that works, huh? I still sometimes cheat to speed up the process by microwaving cold sticks of butter for 10 seconds to soften it a bit without melting it and sticking the eggs in bowls of hot tap water for 10 minutes while I pull out other ingredients. But ideally you should let the eggs, butter, sour cream, and milk sit out on the counter for an hour before making the cake. 
• Really cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. This takes about 3-4 minutes of beating on high speed with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or using an electric mixer.
• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, but don’t overmix once you add the flour.
• Grease and flour your bundt pan well using baking spray, not cooking spray.  Baking spray has flour in it and is a total game changer when it comes to making bundt cakes that release easily from the pan.

Head on over to Imperial Sugar for the full recipe I developed for them.

RECIPE: Sour Cream Pound Cake

More Classic Dessert Recipes You’ll Love

• Red Velvet Cake
• Soft & Chewy Molasses Cookies
• Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
• Sticky Toffee Pudding