Sour Cream Pound Cake

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If you love pound cake, this Sour Cream Pound Cake is sure to become a new go-to recipe! 

This tender, flavorful pound cake has a wonderfully moist texture and tastes amazing just as it is or topped with a simple glaze or a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Glazed Sour Cream Pound Cake, sliced, on a white cake pedestal.

Why we Love It

There are so many reasons to love this sour cream pound cake recipe! Here are just a few:

  • Very easy to make with simple ingredients.
  • Velvety soft and rich.
  • The sour cream makes for a thick batter- perfect for add-ins like chocolate chips, bits of fruit or nuts, etc. if you'd like to change things up! (For example, our Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake!)
  • Keep this cake in mind when you need a quick birthday cake recipe, potluck dessert, or just because!
Sour Cream Pound Cake

How to Make Sour Cream Pound Cake

*You can find the full, printable recipe card for this pound cake further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of the steps!

  • Prepare Pan and Preheat: Grease and flour a tube pan or bundt cake pan. and lower the oven rack to the next to lowest position. Preheat oven temperature to 325 degrees F
  • Flour and Leavening: In a separate bowl whisk the flour and baking powder to combine, set aside for later.
  • Butter and Sugar: Cream the softened butter with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer (or beaters of a handheld mixer). Gradually add the granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy- 3 to 5 minutes.
  • Eggs: Add the room temperature eggs one at a time blending after each to incorporate.
  • Add Flour Mixture and Sour Cream Alternately: Next, add the vanilla extract and lemon to the mixing bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream to the butter, sugar, egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. (I add the flour mixture three times and the sour cream twice.) Mix just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Be careful not to over-mix!
  • Fill the Pan & Bake!: Pour the pound cake batter into the prepared pan and bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Baking times may vary a bit and so check on the cake around the one hour mark and adjust as needed.
  • This recipe makes approximately 8-8.5 cups of batter.
  • Allow the pound cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes on a wire rack before turning it out.

Easy Vanilla Glaze

This sour cream pound cake tastes amazing with or without a glaze, but we thought we'd dress it up a bit with our easy vanilla glaze.

Easy Vanilla Glaze

This simple glaze consists of confectioners sugar, a bit of milk, and vanilla extract.

Keep in mind that this is a sweet glaze but each slice of cake is only going to have a small amount and so it is not overpowering at all. It just lends a little sweetness and most of all, it's pretty! ;0)

Moist Sour Cream Pound Cake from Scratch

Recipe FAQs

The sour cream adds additional moisture to the cake without thinning the batter. The result is an extra tender, velvety, moist pound cake with a fine crumb.

Just as with Buttermilk Pound Cake, the boost of acidity that sour cream adds to the cake batter softens the strands of gluten, which also makes for a softer, more tender cake.

Finally, just as with the mascarpone in our Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake, the fat content of sour cream adds a wonderful richness to this pound cake as well as a velvety texture. 

A few more cakes with sour cream that we love are our chocolate sour cream cake, peach pound cake, and WASC cake from cake mix.

Yes! Just as with our buttermilk pound cake, cream cheese pound cake, vanilla bundt cake, and whipping cream pound cake, this pound cake freezes beautifully.

After baking, allow the pound cake to cool. Once cooled, (or even while the cake is still a bit warm), wrap and freeze the pound cake tightly with plastic wrap, followed by aluminum foil.

The cake can be frozen for up to three months, and once thawed, will taste as fresh as the day that it was baked.

To thaw the sour cream pound cake, remove it (still wrapped) from the freezer and place in the refrigerator the night before you need it. The following morning, bring to room temperature on the kitchen counter.

Just as with any of our pound cake recipes and bundt cake recipes, very little decoration is needed! You could serve the slice of cake plain, with a scoop of ice cream, or topped with homemade whipped cream and fresh berries.

We often use a simple vanilla glaze as we did today. This can be spooned over the cake, or piped with a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away (or with ziplock bag with the corner snipped away.)

If you are craving chocolate, you could even add a chocolate drip, as we did with our chocolate chip pound cake.

We have a few other flavors of sour cream pound cake that we just love! A few of our favorites are: Lemon and Blueberry Pound Cake, Blueberry Pound Cake, Cherry Chocolate Chip Pound Cake, and Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake.

No, the cake will stay fresh for a few days in an airtight container or under a cake dome at room temperature.

More Pound Cake Recipes

If you are a fan of pound cakes, don't miss our other delicious Pound Cake Recipes and Bundt Cake Recipes! They are sure to please a crowd, and are so easy to make.

Some of our most popular are our Lemon Pound Cake, Banana Pound Cake, Marble Pound Cake, and Strawberry Shortcake Pound Cake. Try them all!

Make sure to check out our full collection of Cake Recipes, including favorite cake mix recipes and cake recipes from scratch!

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Sour Cream Pound Cake

This tender, flavorful pound cake is super moist and has wonderful flavor and richness! It is easy to make and tastes amazing just as it is or topped with berries and cream!
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Course: Dessert
Servings: 15 servings
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Ingredients

  • 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened (339g)
  • 3 cups white sugar (600g)
  • 5 large eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
  • 3 cups All purpose flour, (not self-rising) (375g)
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder (2g)
  • 1 cup sour cream (242g)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
  • 1 teaspoon lemon extract (optional) (4g)

For the Glaze (optional)

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1-2 tablespoons milk start with 1 tablespoon, increase if needed for desired consistency

Instructions

  • Grease and flour a tube pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
  • In a separate bowl whisk the flour and baking powder to combine, set aside for later.
  • Cream the butter with the paddle attachment in your mixer, gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy 3 to 5 minutes.
  • Add the eggs one at a time blending after each to incorporate.
  • Add the vanilla and lemon to the mixing bowl.
  • While mixing at low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream to the butter, sugar, & egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. (I add the flour mixture three times and the sour cream twice). Mix just until incorporated.
  • Bake at 325 degrees for 60-70 minutes -Baking times may vary and so check on the cake as it nears the 1 hour mark. When an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached, it is ready.
  • This makes approximately 8-8.5 cups of batter.
  • Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before flipping out onto wire rack.
  • For the Glaze
  • Combine sugar with 1 Tablespoon of milk. Add additional milk if needed for desired thickness.
  • Load into a piping bag with the tip snipped away and drizzle onto your cake (or you can drizzle by the spoonful).
  • **If glaze is too thick, add a bit more milk. If it is too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar.

Notes

This cake can be baked in advance and frozen for up to three months if wrapped properly. We wrap the the cake with a layer or two of plastic wrap, followed by aluminum foil. To thaw, move to the wrapped cake to the refrigerator the night before you need it. Then, remove from the refrigerator the next morning and continue to thaw.
4.64 from 57 votes (57 ratings without comment)

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12 Comments

  1. I usually leave pound cakes out on the counter. Can this cake be left out with the glaze.
    I love your recipes and instructions.

  2. Hello! Just a quick question... I have noticed that the size of eggs is different in different parts of the world so approximately how much should the eggs weigh?

    1. Hi Mihaelia, We use large eggs in all of our cake recipes. I weighted 4 eggs from our carton of eggs. The weight ranged from 57grams to 67grams. This was the weight of eggs in their shell.