The Best Whipping Cream Pound Cake Recipe

Watch my best whipped cream pound cake recipe web story here.

Modifications to My Master Pound Cake Recipe

Should you care at all, I wanted to let you guys know that this is the second version of my famous-in-my-own-mind pound cake.

The first version of my pound cake recipe is pretty excellent as is, but I made a couple of modifications:

• I used a mixture of 2 parts white sugar and 1 part brown sugar (I used Summer Dessert Week’s sponsor, Dixie Crystals Brown Sugar)
• For the original 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) of half and half, I substituted 3/4 cups half and half and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped just until it was thick.

Why Use Whipping Cream in a Pound Cake

The short answer is because, in her fabulously approachable-yet-sciencey book, Bakewise, Shirley Corriher told me to.

The longer answer is that the gently whipped cream not only adds additional fat for tenderness, but it also contributes to the crumb structure because of all the wee tiny bubbles you whisked into it.

In other words, it boosts the creaming of the butter and sugar in the creaming method, adding extra bubbles that will expand in the oven.

This leads to a tight, even crumb structure that is just about perfect. See?

How to Make Pound Cake From Scratch

With so many “hands and pans” videos out there showing you how you can dump all the ingredients for a cake in a bowl and mix them up, I am here to tell you that’s not the best way to make a cake.

Yes, you’ll end up with a cake, but dumping everything in together gives you no control over the crumb structure of the cake–how fine or how coarse–and that has everything to do with how the cake melts in your mouth, or doesn’t.

Since a pound cake is all about the balance between tenderness and structure, it pays to know how to make that balance pay off.

What You Need

Here are the ingredients you need, and what they do in your recipe. You may also want to take a look at my posts about Ingredient Function to understand a little of the “why” behind “how” to make a cake from scratch.

• cake flour (structure) You may also substitute all-purpose flour here. The texture of the crumb will be slightly less tender, but not appreciably so
• baking powder (leavening) Do NOT substitute baking soda. Since there is only a tiny bit of acidic ingredients (the molasses in the brown sugar) you do not need baking soda to balance it
• butter (tenderness, flavor, browning) Use unsalted butter here, at cool room temperature
• sugar (tenderness, sweetness, browning, moisture)
• extracts (flavoring) You may use all vanilla if you don’t want to add the lemon and almond extracts. I like to use a mixture of the three because it adds a bit of complexity to the cake, but it would be excellent as just a “vanilla pound cake.” If you want to make an almond pound cake, leave out the vanilla and lemon extract and use 1 teaspoon almond extract. Don’t try to turn this recipe into a lemon pound cake, though. Use my recipe.
• salt (flavor enhancer) I use fine sea salt. You can also use table salt if that’s all you have. You can use kosher salt, but you will have to increase the amount since kosher salt doesn’t pack as tightly as fine salt does
• eggs (structure, browning): 5 large eggs
• half and half (moisture)
• heavy cream, lightly whipped (moisture, additional fat for tenderness, and extra air bubbles for a tight, velvety crumb)

What to Do

For best texture and structure, you will use the creaming method to make this cake. In short, here are the steps.

1. Cream butter until smooth.
2. Add sugars, salt, and extracts and cream until light and fluffy.
3. Beat the eggs together and drizzle very slowly into the butter/sugar mixture until well incorporated.
4. Alternate adding dry ingredients with the half and half, beginning and ending with dry.
5. Whip cream just until thick then fold into your batter.

Tips for Success

The most critical thing to do is to make sure that all your refrigerated ingredients (butter, half and half, and eggs) are at cool room temperature.

For the most stable foam from your cream, you’ll want to keep your heavy cream chilled and whisk it straight from the fridge.

The amount is small enough that folding in the cold cream at the end of mixing should not make the butter seize up.

For the most stable batter, rather than adding one whole egg at a time, whisk the eggs all together and then drizzle them in slowly. This will help you build your emulsion slowly, resulting in a thick and billowy batter.

How Long Does Pound Cake Last?

Pound cake is one of those amazing kinds of cakes that get better with age. To a point.

A pound cake tends to get more moist (moister?) as it sits on the counter.

I used to love having a slice of my mom’s dark chocolate pound cake after it had been in the old cake keeper for a few days. The bottom half would slowly turn from “just chocolate” to fudgy and wonderful. So good, if you can wait that long!

Well covered, you can keep and enjoy a good pound cake for 5-7 days.

If you don’t think you’ll be able to work your way through that much cake in that amount of time, freeze a portion of it. Well-wrapped, it will be fine in the freezer for a couple of months.

How to Freeze

Pound cake freezes very well. If you don’t want to freeze the entire cake, you can bake it, allow the cake to cool completely, and then cut the portion you want to freeze into individual slices.

Here are two ways to freeze your sliced pound cake:

• Stack the slices with a piece of parchment in between each slice, place inside heavy duty zip top bags, pressing out as much air as possible before sealing, OR
• wrap stacks first in 2 layers of plastic wrap and then a layer of heavy duty aluminum foil.

The well-wrapped slices of pound cake should keep just fine for up to 3 months.

Remove slices as needed and let thaw on the counter, microwave for 20 seconds to thaw, or even toast the slices in your toaster oven.

Serving Suggestions

Never let it be said that pound cake is plain, y’all.

Serve it with a scoop of French vanilla ice cream, or for contrast, chocolate ice cream.

Use it as the base for a traditional English trifle. In that case, it’s easiest to bake in loaf pans so you can easily cut it into rectangles. And leave off the glaze.

Ingredients from Sponsors

To make my whipping cream pound cake, I used brown sugar from Dixie Crystals, lemon extract from Adam’s Extract & Spice, and sprinkles from both Wilton and Sweets & Treats Boutique.

Please visit our sponsors and scroll down below the recipe so you can enter for chances to win one of five great prize packages!

Sprinkles Make Decorating Easy

If you want your whipping cream pound cake to have a bit more flair than just a glaze will give it, consider decorating that guy with sprinkles!

I used a mixture of sprinkles from Sweets & Treats, a mixture of just the blue sprinkles and jimmies from Wilton, and then a mixture of all three to show you can get different effects depending on the sprinkles you use.

If you use nothing but red and green sprinkles, this cake would be at home as a Christmas dessert. Green? St. Patrick’s Day!

So have fun with sprinkles and let them lend a bit of personality to your baked goods.

They’re easy to use, just sprinkle them on while your glaze is still wet.

More Pound Cake Recipes for You to Try

As I’ve said, I’m a huge fan of pound cake. I think you will enjoy my Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pound Cake (my ode to an underappreciated Pop-Tart flavor) and my Best Lemon Pound Cake (super lemony!).

If you’re an almond fan, I think you will really enjoy this cream cheese-based almond pound cake. And this decadent chocolate cream cheese pound cake from my friend Lynn who writes for Our State Magazine here in NC will definitely appeal to the chocolate lover!

A Note About Measurements

Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume. Even though I try to always give volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a scale for both accuracy and consistency.

This is the one I use and love:

Disclaimer: These posts and recipes are part of the week-long event, #SummerDessertWeek but all opinions are 100% mine! We would like to Thank our amazing sponsors: Dixie Crystals, Adam’s Extract, , Sweets and Treats Shop and Anolon! These wonderful sponsors provided the prize packs for our giveaways and also sent samples and products to the #SummerDessertWeek bloggers to use in their recipes.