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!
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 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.
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)
what is the purpose of the sour cream in cake?
This is our first sour cream pound cake recipe and now I want to put sour cream in all of our pound cakes.
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. It is such a delicious pound cake!
The boost of acidity that sour cream adds to the batter softens the strands of gluten, which also makes for a more tender cake!
Finally, the fat content of sour cream adds a wonderful richness to this pound cake as well as a velvety texture.
Can this Sour Cream Pound Cake be Frozen?
Yes! Not only does this sour cream pound cake taste amazing fresh from the oven, but you can bake it, wrap, and freeze it for weeks or even up to three months!
How to Freeze Pound Cake: *In order to freeze your pound cakes, move the freshly baked pound cake onto a cake board, wrap it once or twice in plastic wrap and then follow with a layer of aluminum foil. Then freeze. (By the way, we like to wrap our cakes while they are still a bit warm.)
When you are ready to thaw the cake, keep the pound cake wrapped and place on the countertop until condensation forms on the foil.
Then unwrap and continue to thaw as needed. The pound cake will taste as fresh as the day it was frozen!
You can also do the same with individual slices of pound cake. They'll be ready to go for whenever the pound cake cravings strike. It's also a great cake to keep on standby for whenever company drops in!
*For best flavor and texture, serve the cake at room temperature!
How to Decorate a Pound Cake
Pound cakes can be dressed up in all sorts of beautiful, fun, and simple ways! Here are just a few ideas:
- A simple glaze like our vanilla glaze, caramel glaze, or ganache
- A dusting of powdered sugar (lightly tapped through a sifter)
- Buttercream piping, stenciling, or piped flowers
- Fresh flowers in the center (double check that they are food safe)
- Fresh fruit, sugared berries
More Pound Cake Recipes to try
We LOVE pound cakes and hope to add many more to our recipes section! They are just SO good, easy to make, and can be dressed up to fit any occasion.
Make sure to put these recipes on your list (after you make today's Sour Cream Pound Cake of course!) ;0) Enjoy!
Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake
Lemon Blueberry Sour Cream Pound Cake
My Cake School Online Cake Tutorials and Recipes!
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If you give it a try, we would love for you to leave a comment and photo below.
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Sour Cream Pound Cake

This tender, flavorful pound cake is super moist and has wonderful flavor!
Ingredients
- 3 sticks (339 g) unsalted butter, softened
- 3 cups (600 g) sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups (375 g) all purpose flour, (not self-rising)
- ½ teaspoon (2 g) baking powder
- 1 cup (242g) sour cream
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) vanilla
- 1 teaspoon (4 g) lemon extract (optional)
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.
Looks delish! I love a good pound cake! :-)
I usually leave pound cakes out on the counter. Can this cake be left out with the glaze.
I love your recipes and instructions.
Hi Adraine, this will be fine on the counter under a cake dome for a few days!
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?
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.
Thanks so much for all the great recipes and the quick reply to all of our questions!!!
We appreciate your nice comments, Mihaelia.
Also try toasting a slice in the toaster! It’s freaking delicious!
My mistake was using self rising flour. My 87 year old Grandmommy said this is the best pound cake she ever had!
Hi Sephora, That is correct, this recipe uses all purpose flour. I am very happy your Grandmother enjoyed the cake.