Buttermilk Pound Cake

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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.

What Makes Buttermilk Good for Baking?

Buttermilk's acidity not only adds a hint of tanginess, but it also breaks down gluten, creating a wonderfully soft and tender cake.

In our recipes, you can almost always find either sour cream, cream cheese, buttermilk, or even a splash of vinegar. These popular acidic ingredients truly take cakes to another level!

Can Pound Cake be Frozen?

This pound cake freezes beautifully. Whether you are baking in advance, or saving leftover cake for another time, simply wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap, followed by foil. You can free the cake for up to three months!

When baking in advance, we like to place the cake (still slightly warm) on a foil-wrapped cake cardboard, then cover in plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil.

To defrost, move the wrapped cake to the refrigerator overnight, and then continue to thaw the next morning on the kitchen counter for a few hours or until time to serve.

We like to remove the wrapping after the condensation has formed (after sitting about 40-45 minutes at room temperature).

What is the Difference between Cake Flour and All Purpose Flour?

Cake flour has a lower protein content than all purpose, which means that less gluten is forms. The result is a softer, more tender crumb.

How Long Should You Cool a Pound Cake?

We like to cool our pound cakes and bundt cakes in the pan, on a wire rack, for ten minutes before turning out.

Cooling the cake on a cooling rack (still in the pan) allows air to circulate all the way around the pan.

How Should you Serve a Pound Cake?

This delicious pound can can be topped with a simple sugar glaze as we featured in today's post, topped with berries and whipped cream or ice cream, or a dusting a confectioners' sugar.

Whether you decide to dress it up with a decoration, or serve it just as it is. I can't think of anything nicer than a slice of warm cake and a cup of tea! However you choose to enjoy your pound cake, you are sure to fall in love with its dreamy texture and flavor. So good!

How to Make Buttermilk Pound Cake

This cake recipe is a simple combination of 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 pan or tube pan, and preheat the oven to 325℉

Bundt pan that has been greased and floured

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), cream the butter on medium speed until smooth. Next, gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy for 3 to 5 minutes.

Creaming the Butter and Sugar in mixing bowl

Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each until the yolk is incorporated.

Buttermilk Cake Batter in mixing bowl after adding eggs

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.

Scoop the buttermilk cake batter into the prepared bundt pan.

Buttermilk Pound Cake batter in bundt pan

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Baking times may vary.

Freshly baked buttermilk pound cake, still in pan

Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.

Ahhh... the perfect pound cake!

For the Easy Vanilla Glaze

We often use a simple vanilla glaze 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).

Buttermilk Pound Cake, sliced, on a pedestal

More Pound Cakes

Thanks so much for stopping by today. 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, here are a few more of our favorites!

Strawberry Pound Cake

Marble Pound Cake

Cherry Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

Buttermilk Pound Cake

Melissa and BeBe

This ultra moist vanilla buttermilk pound cake has a velvety soft texture and is so decadent. Tastes amazing on its own, or topped with berries and cream!

4.89 from 17 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 1 5

Servings

Ingredients

1 ½ cups (339g) unsalted butter, softened
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.

Notes

Substitute for Buttermilk: No Buttermilk? Here is a substitution: Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar to a measuring cup. To that, add milk to the 1 cup mark. Stir and allow to sit for a minute or two to thicken.

Substitution for Cake Flour: Using all purpose flour (plain in UK) to make Cake Flour: For each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend.

Bundt Pan: Our bundt pan has a baking capacity of 12 cups and measures about 10 inches. If you are working with a smaller pan, it will take longer to bake. Be careful not to overfill. (General rule of thumb: don't fill pan past ⅔ full)

Freezing: This cake can be frozen. If working in advance, we like to tightly wrap our freshly baked cake in a layer of plastic wrap and foil while the cake is still a bit warm and pop in the freezer. The cake can be frozen for up to three months.

Thawing: Bundt cakes take longer to thaw than cake layers. It is best to move the frozen, wrapped cake to the refrigerator the night before, and then move to the kitchen counter the next morning (still wrapped) to continue thawing for a few hours. If you'd like, you can remove the foil after a condensation has formed.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!