Cream Cheese Pound Cake
This Cream Cheese Pound Cake is simple to make, and has a wonderful moist crumb, with a caramelized and flavorful crust. Finished with a simple icing, this cake is perfect for brunch or afternoon tea, or even shipping as a food gift to loved ones.
I find it hard to explain why I love pound cakes so much, as there is nothing really fancy about a pound cake.
A good pound cake is simple, made with only a few basic ingredients, and dense by nature. But the flavor is just so pleasant and perfectly balanced, and when served with a dollop of whipped cream and fresh strawberries? It’s heaven.
As simple as pound cakes are, this recipe in particular has a couple extra somethings going on.
First of all, we bake it in a super creviced bundt pan that gives the edges a caramelized crust. If you’ve ever had a Canele before, it smells exactly like that when you pull this cake out of the oven.
The other extra something is the cream cheese. There’s still butter too, but the cream cheese adds extra flavor and richness to the cake.
If you look at pound cake recipes, there seem to be a ton of different ways to do them.
Maybe they’re trying to innovate on a classic, but one recipe I saw requires changing the oven from 200 degrees F, to 225, to 275, to 300, all throughout the baking process.
I tested out a few variations of my own and found that the results for baking this pound cake at a consistent 325 yielded fantastic results, so I’m pleased as is. This is a very easy pound cake recipe.
There are also different plays on ingredients, and this cream cheese pound cake is a dense but moist cake, in a way I enjoy.
Step by Step Overview:
To get started, combine room temperature unsalted butter and room temperature cream cheese:
I simply use an electric mixer and a large glass mixing bowl, but you may also use a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl well if using a stand mixer.
Mix the cream cheese and butter with medium speed until smooth, then add granulated white sugar and fine kosher salt:
Mix until it looks fluffy and smooth:
Add six eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla paste (or vanilla extract):
To finish it off, go down to low speed, and mix in all purpose flour:
No leaveners?
There are no other dry ingredients in this recipe aside from the flour. The lift comes from all the eggs, so no baking powder or other leaveners are needed!
A traditional pound cake is made from only 4 ingredients: a pound of butter, a pound of flour, a pound of eggs, and a pound of sugar.
Scrape the dough into a buttered and floured bundt pan:
Then bake until deeply caramelized on the edges.
For best results, let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before flipping it out onto a wire rack:
That’s a gorgeously perfect cake!
Glaze with a simple icing if you’d like, pouring it so that it drips all around the outsides and center of the cake.
The glaze I share in the recipe box is simply made with powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract.
Then serve with whipped cream and fresh fruit of your choice. Fresh berries tend to be best.
You could also pair with a homemade raspberry sauce or Blueberry Sauce, or even a scoop of ice cream. Enjoy!
These Butter Swirl Shortbread Cookies are another of my favorite simple desserts.
More Easy Desserts:
Oh, and since I always get asked this, this is the bundt cake pan I’m using. I think the shape is so pretty!
Recipe Tips and FAQ
No, you can keep it at room temperature for several days. If you plan to keep it longer than that, store it in the freezer. Wrap really well with plastic wrap and/or aluminum foil, or cut into pieces and keep in an airtight container.
Definitely, it freezes beautifully! Store the cake wrapped in plastic wrap and in an airtight container for up to two months.
This is tricky because pan sizes are different. The bundt pan I’ve used here is a 10-cup capacity pan. You could try to split this into two loaf pans instead, but I recommend a smaller 8×4 instead of the standard 9×5. Bake time will be less, approximately 1 hour, but make sure to keep your eye on it.
Recipe Variations
In my opinion, the best pound cake recipe is one that uses simple ingredients and is more about the incredible richness of the cake.
If you want to change up the recipe, I recommend doing so by using different baking extracts. You could add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract, for instance, to add a different flavor.
I have not experimented with mix-ins for this recipe, but if you’d like to, stick with “non-wet” ingredients like chocolate chips, as opposed to fresh fruit.
Did you enjoy the recipe? Please leave a 5-star rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page. Or, follow me on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest!
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 8 oz block cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 6 large eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- 15 oz all-purpose flour, by weight (3 cups, if measuring)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Prepare a bundt pan by greasing with butter and dusting with flour. This will prevent the cake from sticking.
- Cream the cream cheese and butter together at medium speed until combined. Add the sugar and salt and mix until incorporated and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time allowing each to incorporate before adding the next. Mix in the vanilla paste. Next add the flour, and go down to low speed. Mix until just combined, and be careful not to over mix.
- Scrape the dough into the prepared pan, smooth out the top with your spatula, and place in the oven. Bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 20 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy plainly sliced, or garnished with berries and whipped cream!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
28 Comments on “Cream Cheese Pound Cake”
I love the simplicity of a pound cake.
I just made this pound cake for the first time last night. In my newer oven, it was perfectly done at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes. We are now enjoying delicious slices with our Easter morning coffee! I will definitely be making this recipe again. Thanks for sharing this easy recipe for a scrumptious and moist pound cake.
My great grandmothers recipe and always my favorite.