Easy Cream Cheese Pound Cake
This Easy Cream Cheese Pound Cake is made with simple ingredients, including tangy cream cheese, vanilla extract, and almond extract. It’s rich and dense with a tender crumb, and it has a melt-in-your-mouth texture. It’s the best pound cake recipe with cream cheese!
Easy Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe
Cheesecake is probably the world’s most perfect dessert (although chocolate chip cookies and tiramisu might be close seconds), but if there was a dessert that could possibly be tied for first with cheesecake, it just might be pound cake.
The rich, amazingly simple, buttery and sweet, Pound Cake.
There’s nothing pretentious about the classic pound cake recipe: it’s just a few ingredients mixed together to create a moist, tender, and artfully rich cake. Now, traditional pound cake recipes are an old fashioned Southern dessert made with a pound of flour, a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, and a pound of eggs. This cream cheese version is slightly different but even better than the classic pound cake recipe.
In my opinion, the perfect pound cake recipe is made with cream cheese, because it makes for such a tangy yet buttery pound cake with a perfect, melt-in-your-mouth texture with a soft crumb. It’s a favorite dessert of mine, as it’s the perfect cake to use for brunch, dessert, or afternoon tea. It can be served with a dusting of powdered sugar, or it can be topped with homemade whipped cream and fresh berries.
Reasons To Love This Easy Pound Cake Recipe:
- Moist: Nothing is worse than a dry pound cake, and luckily this cream cheese version makes for such a moist cake! It’s rich in flavor and dense in texture, but perfectly moist.
- Sweet: It’s sweet, flavored with vanilla and almond, but it’s not overtly sweet. It’s the kind of cake you want with a serving of whipped cream and fresh strawberries.
- Simple: This is such an easy cream cheese pound cake recipe, mainly because it’s only a few ingredients and it’s baked in a bundt pan. Pound Cake in a bundt pan is one of my favorite ways to serve this cake, because it’s beautiful and elegant, yet so simple to make.
- Texture: A really good pound cake should be buttery in flavor and the texture of the pound cake should have a soft and slightly spongy texture that practically melts-in-your-mouth. The cake itself will be heavy, but it should be moist, rich, and flavorful.
Homemade Pound Cake Ingredients:
This southern cream cheese pound cake uses a variety of pantry staple ingredients. It comes together easily and bakes simply in a bundt cake pan!
- Unsalted Butter: Unsalted butter is my go-to choice in baking because I control the salt content.
- Cream Cheese: I highly suggest using Philadelphia cream cheese for this pound cake, because Philadelphia has the best flavor (in my opinion). Make sure you use full fat cream cheese.
- Granulated Sugar
- Eggs + Egg Yolks: This calls for both whole eggs and egg yolks. The extra yolks yield richness.
- Half & Half: For those unfamiliar with half & half, this is an ingredient you can find in the dairy section of your grocery store. It is half heavy whipping cream and half whole milk.
- Vanilla Extract: This gives the pound cake a hint of vanilla.
- Almond Extract: This enhances the overall flavor of the pound cake—it brings out the buttery flavor and adds that special extra ‘something’ to the recipe. If you do not have this, you can use more vanilla extract.
- All Purpose Flour
- Salt
- Powdered Sugar: This is optional, but I think pound cake is perfect when dusted with a bit of powdered sugar.
How To Make This Recipe:
The full step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below. This is a brief overview of how to make pound cake from scratch!
- Cream Batter: To make a perfect pound cake recipe, it is very important to take the time to cream butter, cream cheese, and sugar together until really light and fluffy and pale yellow in color in the bowl of a stand mixer or with an electric mixer. This incorporates air and volume into the cake batter yielding a tender cake. You are going to cream for 5-7 minutes. It’s a long time, but it’s very important to making this the perfect pound cake.
- Eggs: Next, incorporate the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Wet Ingredients: Mix half & half, vanilla extract, and almond extract into the batter.
- Dry Ingredients: Sift flour and salt together, then add the dry ingredients into the batter in thirds, mixing on low after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Bake: Pour batter into a greased bundt cake pan, and spread into an even layer. Tap the pan onto the counter a few times to release any air bubbles. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour and 20-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Cool: All the cake to cool a bit before removing it from the pan. Dust powdered sugar over the top of the cooled cake and serve.
Storage Tips:
Cream Cheese Pound Cake can be stored at room temperature, in the fridge, or even in the freezer.
- Room Temperature: Keep the pound cake in a well-sealed, airtight container and store for 3-4 days.
- Refrigerator: Store pound cake in an airtight container and keep in the fridge for up to a week. This is such a moist pound cake recipe that it tastes as good cold as it does at room temperature. It won’t be dry.
- Freezer: If you want to freeze pound cake, make sure you cover the pound cake well with plastic wrap and foil and freeze for 3 months (it’ll be even fresher if you can also store it in an airtight container). Let the cake come to room temperature, or thaw in the fridge, before serving.
What Pan To Bake Pound Cake:
For this recipe, use a 10-inch bundt cake pan (or 10-inch tube pan). Make sure the cake pan is greased very well! It will make it so much easier to remove the cake from the pan.
Alternatively, you can use loaf pans if you don’t have a bundt pan. Divide the batter between two 8×4 bread pans and bake for about an hour. It might need the full time, but check it at the 1 hour mark.
Quick and Easy Tips For Success:
- Bake Time: Pound Cakes take a long time to bake all the way through. They are generally baked low and slow, otherwise the outside will bake faster than the inside. This bakes at 300 degrees and takes about 90 minutes in the oven.
- Bundt Pan: Make sure to grease your bundt cake pan well. Very, very well. You can grease it with baking spray, with melted butter and flour, or melted butter and sugar. I prefer baking spray, but do what you prefer.
- Room Temperature Ingredients: It’s important you make this southern pound cake with room temperature ingredients, otherwise the cream cheese pound cake might not come out properly. Room temperature ingredients mix together better, which makes for a lighter cake.
- Half & Half: This ingredient cannot be substituted with anything else; however, if you don’t have half & half, you can make it yourself with heavy whipping cream and whole milk. Half & half is exactly as it sounds: half heavy cream and half whole milk mixed together.
Other Pound Cake Recipes and Bundt Cakes To Try Next:
- Peach Pound Cake
- Marble Pound Cake
- Chocolate Pound Cake (chocolate bundt cake)
- Strawberry Bundt Cake (strawberry pound cake)
- Lemon Bundt Cake
- Raspberry Bundt Cake
- Lemon Poppyseed Bundt Cake
Moist Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Ingredients
Cream Cheese Pound Cake:
- 1 1/3 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup half & half*
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract**
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
Topping:
- Powdered Sugar, for dusting
- Whipped Cream
- Fresh Berries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees and grease a 10” bundt cake pan very well. Set aside.
- With a standing mixer or a hand mixer, beat the butter, cream cheese, and sugar on med-high speed until very light, fluffy, and pale yellow in color (about 5-7 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl, as necessary.
- Add in the eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Next, add in half & half, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Mix until just combined.
- Lastly, sift flour and salt together. Then, beating on low, gently add the flour mixture to the batter in thirds, mixing after each addition until just combined. Once the mixture is just combined, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and mix a few times more by hand to ensure all of the flour has been incorporated.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared bundt cake pan, spreading in an even layer. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
- Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. (This takes 1 hour and 30 minutes for my oven.)
- Cool for 15 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and allow the cake to continue cooling.
- Before serving, dust with powdered sugar, slice, and serve with whipped cream and berries, if desired. (It tastes great plain as well!)
Notes
The nutrition facts provided are calculated using a third-party tool and are estimates only. Actual nutritional content may vary based on the ingredients and brands you use, as well as portion sizes. For accurate results, please consult a registered dietitian or nutritionist.
Updated 2024.
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Meet Michelle
I’m a self-taught baker who truly believes it’s impossible to be upset when eating dessert. It’s my life’s goal to bake everyone happy!
If I’m not baking, I’m probably reading a good book with a cup a coffee in hand.
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