Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Looking for a tasty dessert idea? Try using cream cheese in place of some of the butter in a pound cake. This Cream Cheese Pound Cake is a fun and unique sweet treat!
This post may contain paid links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.
The cream cheese adds an extra layer of richness to the pound cake – as if pound cake needed it, right? I absolutely love pound cakes. I’d probably put them in my top 5 list of favorite desserts. From store-bought versions to a variety of homemade versions, I’ve certainly eaten my fair share of pound cake over the years.
This Cream Cheese Pound Cake is definitely tasty. I wouldn’t say that the cream cheese flavor is super noticeable, but you will notice the overall richness of this cake. It’s good. Like really good. (It also uses a whole ton of sugar, eggs and butter…so that helps, too!)
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Several years ago, my sister posted a recipe for Cream Cheese Cookies. Those cookies have become one of the most popular recipes on her blog – and for good reason! The cream cheese replaces some of the butter in the recipe to yield a fluffy and delicious cookie. I decided to try the same concept with a pound cake instead.
As with those cream cheese cookies, I found that using cream cheese in a pound cake yielded a much fluffier cake. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still a dense cake. It is a pound cake after all! However, as it was baking, this pound cake used every bit of my 12-cup Bundt pan. Had the pan been any smaller, I would’ve been picking bits of pound cake out of the bottom of my oven. (That’s not high on my list of things to do!)
I do highly recommend this cake. I opted for a hefty amount of vanilla extract as the only flavor here…mainly because a good vanilla pound cake is my jam. But I could totally see using a combination of vanilla and almond extract, or perhaps adding a large pinch or two of lemon zest.
In keeping with the simple approach, I went with a dusting of powdered sugar for the top of this pound cake. However, a glaze would work well, too. No matter how you serve it, a slice of this cake will be quite tasty! Oh, and side tip about leftover pound cake. We enjoyed this cake fresh, but even I can’t eat an entire pound cake in 1-2 days. You can freeze a portion for later, but if you find yourself with pound cake that’s a couple days old? Toss a slice into the toaster oven! The edges will get slightly crispy for a delicious treat. I hope you enjoy this dessert as much as we did!
Did you make this Cream Cheese Pound Cake at home? Leave a comment, or snap a photo and tag me on Instagram (@Spicedblog). I’d love to see your version!
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 8 oz. cream cheese room temperature
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 2½ cups granulated sugar
- 6 large eggs room temperature
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 3½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- confectioner’s sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Using a stand mixer, add cream cheese and butter; mix on medium speed for 2-3 minutes, or until smooth.
- Add granulated sugar; mix for 3-4 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs two at a time, mixing after each addition until well combined.
- Add sour cream and vanilla extract; mix until well combined.
- Using a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add cream; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add remaining flour; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan. Transfer batter into pan.
- Bake for 45 minutes. Tent the top of the cake with foil and continue baking for 75-80 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out mostly clean.
- Let cake cool for 2 hours in the pan before inverting pan onto a wire rack or serving plate.
- Dust top of cake with confectioner’s sugar before slicing and serving.
Looking for more tasty pound cake recipes? Check out these other favorites, too:
Sour Cream Pound Cake with Cinnamon Walnut Swirl
Lemon Blueberry 7UP Pound Cake
Will be making this soon can i use vegan cream cheese / vegan butter / coconut cream and cashew cream perfect for my birthday next year on 19 September and after office snacks love your recipes always brightens up my day everyday after work will dm you if i make this and let you know how it goes Thanks Ramya
Hey Ramya! I don’t know how vegan butter and cream cheese works when you try to cream it together with coconut cream. I do think it’s worth a try, though! This is a fantastic pound cake, and I hope you enjoy it!!
The top and crumb of this pound cake look like absolute perfection, David! This beauty definitely needs to happen at our house during the holidays.
The top of a pound cake is the best part! If I wouldn’t get in trouble with the rest of the family, I would just slice the top off and take that as my slice! 🙂
Actually using cream cheese for the dough does not sound strange to me as I often use this trick (This also reminded me some European Christmas pastry, probably Polish, made with cream cheese I tried years ago – I need to find the recipe. Because that was soooo good) Back to your recipe: you’re the kind of pound cakes (and also coffee cakes), and I love this version! Delicious (as always.)
You know, that’s a good point, Ben. I feel like European pastries use cream cheese on occasion – so it kinda makes sense from that angle. You should find the recipe for that European Christmas Pastry – it is the right season now after all!
this looks wonderful david. i do love me a bundt pan cake. and i adore cream cheese not that hubby and i are eating such things anymore – sadly. his blood pressure was sky high so we have turned into rabbits – all salad and nuts…
Hey, salads and nuts can be tasty! They’re not pound cake, but they’re still pretty good. 🙂 At least you can look at pictures without any detrimental side effects to your health. Haha! Hang in there, Sherry!
This must be rich and delcious, reminds me of the Japanese cheesecake but a denser version. Love the recipe
Ah, I’ve never had Japanese cheesecake! However, you make a good point here about the richness of cream cheese. It’s fantastic in this cake as it replaces a bit of the butter. I love a good pound cake! Thanks, Raymund!
Oooh, David! I do love a pound cake as well, and when it’s a cream cheese poundcake, totally count me in! I agree with you, a nice hit of vanilla is a natural here!
This pound cake was fantastic! I loved the extra rich flavor thanks to the cream cheese. Of course, I love all pound cakes, so it’s hard for me to pick a favorite! Thanks, Laura!
Vanilla is my go to cake flavouring David so I’m glad you added a nice tablespoon of it here. Also love how you’ve reduced the amount of butter and substituted with some cream cheese. Nice touch. I’ll have to give that a go. Your cake looks delicious!! Now off to spend hours checking out your sisters recipes!!
I went heavy on the vanilla here – after all, a vanilla pound cake is just one of my all-time favorites! The cream cheese in this version was a fun addition. It added an extra richness to the cake…as if a pound cake needed that! haha. Thanks, Neil!!
I just visited your sister’s site. How cool! I’ll bet when the two of you get together, dinner is really something. I have used cream cheese in a cake before, looking for something to guarantee moistness, and I thought it did a good job. I would die for a slice of this pound cake!
The funny thing is when we get together, we don’t cook very much. There are 3 kids (1 of ours and 2 of theirs) running around, and we usually just want easy comfort food. But there are always plenty of desserts around when we get together! This pound cake? Delicious. As if pound cake needed to be any richer…haha. Cheers, my friend!