Buttermilk Pound Cake
This buttermilk pound cake is a velvety soft vanilla cake with a fine crumb and melt-in-your-mouth texture.
It is such a quick and simple scratch pound cake, and tastes amazing all on its own, or topped with berries and cream.
Table of Contents
Why we Love It
There are so many reasons to love this buttermilk pound cake! Here are just a few reasons why this pound cake recipe belongs in your recipe file of favorites!
- Uses simple ingredients and can be whipped up in no time.
- Ultra moist cake that tastes amazing on its own or with berries or a scoop of ice cream.
- Creamy texture (which reminds me of our vanilla velvet cake).
- This buttery cake has great vanilla flavor and a hint of tanginess from the buttermilk. The same is true for our Lemon Pound Cake- a very similar recipe!
- Easy cake for potlucks, picnics, birthdays, or just because!
Recipe FAQs
How to Make Buttermilk Pound Cake
This cake recipe is a simple combination of unsalted butter, sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla extract, buttermilk, and baking powder. We used cake flour, which is made from soft wheat, and has a lower protein content and makes for a softer texture.
You can find the full, printable recipe card further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps!
- Grease and flour a bundt cake pan or tube pan, and preheat the oven to 325℉
- In a separate bowl whisk the cake flour, salt, and baking powder to combine, set aside for later.
- Using an electric mixer (paddle attachment if using a stand mixer) and a large mixing bowl, cream the butter on medium speed until smooth. Next, gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy for 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each until the yolk is incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract to the 1 cup of buttermilk.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in the mixing bowl. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. I do three additions of dry, alternating with two additions of wet.
- Stop mixing as soon as ingredients are incorporated.
- Scoop the buttermilk cake batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Baking times may vary.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes (preferably on a wire rack or cooling rack) before turning out.
Ahhh... the perfect pound cake!
For the Easy Vanilla Glaze
We often use a simple vanilla glaze for cakes to dress up our bundt cakes and pound cakes.
This is a simple combination of confectioners sugar, milk, vanilla, and a pinch of salt.
It can be spooned over the cooled cake, or for more control, it can be piped on using a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away. (You could also use a ziplock bag with a corner snipped away).
Storing the Buttermilk Pound Cake
Store the cooled, decorated cake in an airtight container at room temperature.
More Pound Cakes
We hope that you love this easy buttermilk pound cake recipe!
We have many more pound cakes for you to try! In addition to today's cake, make sure some other popular favorites are our Cream Cheese Pound Cake, Sour Cream Pound Cake, and whipping cream pound cake recipes!
Here are just a few more flavorful pound cakes to put on your must-bake list!
Have you made this Cake? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Buttermilk Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened (339g)
- 3 cups (600g) sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature (place in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes to speed up the process).
- 3 cups (342 g) cake flour (Not self rising. We use Swan's Down, bleached)
- ½ teaspoon (2)g baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
- 1 cup (235 g) buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
Easy Vanilla Glaze
- 2 cups confectioners sugar (measure then sift)
- 3 tablespoons milk (add additional as needed in small increments)
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Grease and flour a tube pan.
- Preheat the oven to 325℉
- In a separate bowl whisk the cake flour, baking powder, and salt to combine, set aside for later.
- Using an electric mixer (paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), cream the butter on medium speed until smooth. Next, gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy for 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each until the yolk is incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract to the 1 cup of buttermilk.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in the mixing bowl. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. I do three additions of dry, alternating with two additions of wet.
- Scoop batter into prepared bundt pan.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Baking times may vary.
- This makes approximately 8 cups of batter.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.
Vanilla Glaze
- Combine ingredients, stirring until smooth. If it is too thick, add more. milk in small increments. If too thin, add additional confectioners sugar. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap until ready to use.
Decorating the Cake
- Once the cake has cooled, you can spoon the glaze over the cake, or for more control, you can spoon it into a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away.
Looks delish! :-)
This turned out beautifully! I made a lemon-orange glaze with zest. Absolutely delicious!
One more pic
One more picture.
I'm so glad that you enjoyed the cake, Jennifer! Thanks for posting your photos- it looks beautiful!
Hi Jennifer, Beautifully done, l love the look of your cake!