This favorite retro 7Up pound cake recipe has a light and refreshing lemon lime flavor and a wonderful texture.
While 7Up Pound Cake is a year-round favorite, we especially love it in the spring and summer when everyone is in the mood for a light, citrusy recipe- and it is oh so good!
Why is there 7Up in this Pound Cake?
The first version of 7Up Pound Cake, which featured the popular lemon lime soft drink, appeared in a recipe book by the 7Up company in 1953. This recipe was so well received that it became an instant classic!
7Up not only adds a delicious, light lemon lime flavor to the cake batter, but more importantly, the fizziness of this carbonated drink gives the batter more lift and a soft texture.
In fact, many bakers skip the leavening altogether when using 7Up in their cake recipes.
How to Make 7Up Pound Cake
You can find the full, printable recipe for this delicious cake further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps!
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease and flour a tube pan
Combine the Dry Ingredients: In a separate bowl add the all purpose flour and baking powder, lemon zest and lime zest- whisk to blended and set aside.
Creaming Butter and Sugar: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the butter until smooth, gradually add the sugar and mix until lightened in color and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
Adding the Eggs: Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg until the yellow of the yolk has blended in.
Extracts: Add the vanilla extract and lemon extract.
Alternating Wet and Dry: Add the cup of 7-Up alternately to the butter, sugar, egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry and 2 additions of 7-up).
Time to Bake! Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden skewer or toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
Allow to Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning out.
Is the Lemon Extract Necessary?
We love lemon desserts, and today's recipe is no exception. This 7Up pound cake has a light lemon and lime flavor from the lemon juice as well as from the oils in the lemon and lime zest (where much of the flavor is concentrated).
Just a Little Boost! We wanted to give the cake just a little extra boost of lemon flavor- it is not overpowering, but the lemon extract brightens the citrus flavor of this recipe a bit more.
*Check Your Extract: Make sure to smell the Lemon Extract before adding it to your batter, especially if it has been open in your pantry for a while. (This is true even if the expiration date hasn't passed.)
Lemon extract should smell lemony- if it smells off, don't use it ;0) This is true for any extract that you bake with.
We learned this the hard way once when we had to throw out a batch of lemon frosting- now we are always careful to check!
Glaze for 7Up Pound Cake
Today, we used a simple glaze for our pound cake, made up of powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lime juice.
This recipe can be easily mixed up in no time. If it is too thick, add a bit more lemon or lime juice--if too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar.
You can apply the glaze to the cooled cake either with a piping bag (with the tip snipped away), or with a spoon.
I love the dressed up look that the glaze adds to the cake- and just a touch of sweetness as well as tartness from the lemon and lime juice.
(By the way, this is a sweet glaze- but each individual slice just has a small amount and so it is not overpowering!)
Can Pound Cake be Frozen?
Yes! Pound cakes that are well wrapped can be frozen for up to three months.
Hooray for having slices of pound cake on hand in the freezer for whenever the mood strikes! Not to mention that being able to bake well in advance is a huge time saver and stress reliever.
We actually freeze our bundt cakes and cake layers all the time whenever time allows.
Wrapping the pound Cake If baking in advance, we like to wrap our pound cakes tightly in plastic wrap, then foil, and into the freezer they go.
We even wrap them while they are still slightly warm but this is optional. If you are freezing slices of leftover pound cake, you can wrap them individually in the same way.
Thawing the Pound Cake When ready to thaw, simply remove the pound cake from the freezer and thaw on the countertop still wrapped. The pound cake will taste just as fresh as the day that it was baked.
More Pound Cakes to Try
In addition to today's 7Up Pound Cake, make sure to keep these other favorite pound cake recipes in mind! We just love pound cakes- they are so simple to whip up, and SO delicious!
You can't beat the short decorating time when it comes to pound cakes- just a simple glaze or berries and whipped cream and you are ready to go! Enjoy these other favorites:
Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Lemon Blueberry Sour Cream Pound Cake
We hope that you enjoy this old-fashioned southern recipe for 7up Pound Cake!! If you give the cake a try, we would love for you to leave a comment and photo below. Thanks so much for stopping by!
7 Up Pound Cake
This retro 7 Up Pound Cake is a tried and true favorite- known for it's light lemon lime flavor and for the 7 Up used in the batter! It has wonderful flavor, soft texture, and a fine crumb.
Ingredients
- 3 sticks (1 ½ cups) (339g) unsalted butter, softened
- 3 cups (600g) sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups (374g) all purpose flour (not self-rising)
- zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime
- ½ teaspoon (2g) baking powder
- 1 cup (242g) 7-UP
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla
- 2 teaspoons (8g) lemon extract
For the Glaze
- 2 Cups Powdered Sugar, sifted
- 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
- 1 Tablespoon Lime Juice
Decoration
- We added a few lemon and lime slices to the top of the cake
Instructions
For the 7 Up Cake
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease and flour a tube pan
2. In a separate bowl add the flour, baking powder and the zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime. Whisk to blend and set aside.
3. In the bowl of your mixer, mix the butter until smooth, gradually add the sugar and mix until lightened in color and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg until the yellow of the yolk has blended in.
5. Add the vanilla and lemon extract.
6. Alternately add the 7-UP and the dry ingredients to the butter, sugar, egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry and 2 additions of 7-up).
7. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden skewer or toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
8. Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning out.
For the Glaze
- Add 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted to a mixing bowl.
- Add 2 Tablespoons lemon juice and 1 Tablespoon lime juice. Mix with a spoon until blended and smooth.
- Add additional lemon juice to thin out the glaze or more powdered sugar to thicken it. You will have approximately 1 cup of glaze.
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Wow that looks very pretty! :-) Never heard of such a pound cake. Sounds delish! :-)
What size tube pan?
You will need a large 12 cup bundt pan or tube pan. There should be a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch space above the batter to the top rim of the pan to prevent overflowing the pan as the cake rises. I hope you will enjoy the recipe.
hi! do you think this bundt cake recipe would be ok for making cupcakes?
Hi Lila, The recipe should work well for cupcakes. They will bake up with only a slight dome or flat. Bake standard size cupcakes at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes.