The Best Vanilla-Buttermilk Pound Cake
An easy pound cake recipe with tips to make not only this tender and delicious cake, but any other pound cake recipes you find better!
Thanksgiving is HERE! Ok, not quite, but it’s coming fast. And far too many times, I see people waiting until the week of Thanksgiving to decide to try new recipes and techniques. Or even worse, the day of! When I tell you the spikes I see in traffic to LizeeAngel during this time is astronomical, it’s made me realize I should do a series that helps people prepare for Thanksgiving with basic recipes, foundational techniques and time saving tips to help them along on Thanksgiving, starting a month out. So hello! You’re here and there will be videos to accompany each of these recipes for the visual learners! First up, a Vanilla-Buttermilk Pound Cake that will knock your socks off and have all of your guests asking for more!
Inspiration for Vanilla-Buttermilk Pound Cake
Pound cake is a classic southern dish and everyone, their mama and their auntie has a recipe they swear by and probably don’t share. But we don’t gatekeep over here. So I’m gonna break down the basics before we jump into the variations. Even though Pound Cake is known as a southern staple, it originates from England and was invented in the 1700s, using a pound each of flour, eggs, butter and sugar. For my recipe, I like to use a low-protein flour option to keep my crumb light and soft.
The options here are a flour like White Lily or Martha White. Or you can use a cake flour. Whenever I’m in a pinch or not feeling like going to the store, I do a homemade cake flour by removing 2 tablespoons per cup of AP flour and replacing it with cornstarch. The outcome is a wonderfully light and moist cake that has so much flavor, you’ll be wanting to make one of these a week.
Tips for Making A Vanilla-Buttermilk Pound Cake
Finally, when making this or ANY pound cake, there are some steps that you will always do for the best outcome:
- Either weigh your flour to measure, or use the scoop and level method to ensure you don’t over pack your flour and end up with a dry cake.
- Use room temperature butter and mix it with your sweetener until light and fluffy. This takes time, but ensures that your cake doesn’t settle at the bottom of the pan or have dense spots.
- Scrape down the sides of your bowl in between additions to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed.
- Start in a cold oven to get a thicker pound cake crust. This not only gives you a beautifully thick, golden crust, it also allows your leavening to spread more evenly and gives you a more fluffy and softer texture. It’s magical!
- Grease and flour your pan, including the middle piece. Whether you use Crisco and flour, a homemade blend or baking spray, make sure you do this to ensure you don’t lose the crust you worked for.
Now that you have these tips on hand, here are a few variations to take make different versions of this cake.
- Double Chocolate: Replace 1 cup of your flour mixture with high-fat cocoa powder. Add 1/4c coffee with your buttermilk. Add 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup and ¼ cup cocoa powder to glaze for a decadent treat
- Butter Pecan: Replace 1 ½ cup of sugar with brown sugar. Add 2 tsp of butter extract to vanilla-buttermilk mixture. Fold 4 cups of toasted pecans to the batter. To the glaze, add 1 tbsp rum or maple extract or use the glaze from my Brown Sugar Pound Cake.
That’s all I have for ya’ll today. If you make this, be sure to tag me using #lizeeangel or join the NikNacks and follow me!. You can find me on tiktok , pinterest, instagram, facebook, twitter and youtube!
The Best Vanilla-Buttermilk Pound Cake
Ingredients
Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake
- 3 cups cake flour or homemade cake flour blend see notes
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 3 cups sugar
- 3 sticks butter
- 6 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Salted Vanilla Glaze
- 2 cups organic powdered sugar
- 2-4 tablespoons half & half
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prepare your baking pan by either spraying with baking spray or greasing & flouring and set aside. Combine flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. Combine buttermilk and vanilla extract and set aside.
- To a mixing bowl, add butter and sugar. Mix on high speed until light and fluffy. Visually, the sugar and butter will go from yellow to very pale yellow/white and you will not feel as much of the sugar in the butter. About 7-10 mins.
- Scrape down sides of the bowl, being sure to get the bottom, and add eggs one at a time on medium speed until they are all combined.
- On low speed, alternate adding flour blend and buttermilk mixture, 1/3 at a time. After final addition of buttermilk and flour, mix until just combined. Some streaks of flour may remain. Fold the mixture together by hand, being sure to scrape the bottom and sides once more to ensure everything is thoroughly combined without over mixing.
- Add evenly to your baking pan and tap firmly on the counter for about 1 minute to ensure all air bubbles are removed.
- Place on the center rack of a cold oven, and set oven to 325. Bake for 45 mins to 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean with just a few streaks on the knife (NOT batter, but streaks of moisture.). Cool COMPLETELY in pan.
- Make glaze by combining all of the ingredients in a bowl or measuring cup with a pouring spout. Taste and adjust for additional salt and vanilla flavor. Pour over cake and allow glaze to run down the sides. Let sit for 10-15 mins to set. Cut and enjoy!
- *Cake can set on counter in cake keeper for up to 5 days and will stay moist and soft.
On the pouns cake recipe I don’t see anywhere we mix our sugar and butter together. Was this mistake
Thank you for that! It’s step 2, but I wrote flour instead of butter mistakenly. That has been corrected & updated!
Could you please clarify, on the ap flour remove 2 tbsp per cup so that would be to remove 6 tbsp total and adding back 6 tbsp of cornstarch is this correct? Thank you
Yes, that is correct. Remove 6TBSP total (for 3 cups of flour)
Hey Nik, did you use salted or unsalted butter?