Butter Pound Cake with Buttercream Frosting

This butter pound cake recipe is a classic, old fashioned cake recipe. If you are new to baking cakes, this is an excellent cake recipe to start with.

The cake is baked in round cake tins and frosted with vanilla buttercream in simple piped design.

This recipe uses self-rising flour instead of all-purpose flour as that really helps with the fluffy texture of the cake.

And unlike a traditional pound cake recipe where the weight of all the four main and ingredients (flour, butter, sugar and eggs) is equal, this butter pound cake recipe does not require eggs to be measured by weight, instead they are measured in quantity.

This recipe also includes some milk and this helps with the soft and moist texture of the cake. There are no other ingredients in this classic pound cake recipe other than the small amount of salt and vanilla, and that makes this a simple and easy vanilla pound cake recipe.

The other point about this butter pound cake recipe is that I have calculated the recipe for various cake tin sizes, so if you want to use this easy recipe to make pound cakes in various different round and square cake tins, you have the full ingredients measure below in the recipe card.

This butter pound cake is my family favorite. We often enjoy it without any frosting, but this is also the cake recipe that I used the most when I made and decorated cakes for others, so it works perfectly well when frosted too!

Seen on this page is my layered butter pound cake frosted with vanilla buttercream. This cake can also be frosted with a simple lemon glaze, caramel drizzle or even cream cheese frosting. The choice is yours!

What is a pound cake?

Pound cake got its name from the weight of the ingredients used in making it. Originally, pound cakes are made using 4 simple ingredients – flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. And each of these is added in equal weights of one pound each, hence the name pound cake.

There are a lot of variations to these pound cakes now, not only in terms of the weight of the ingredients used but also in terms of inclusion of other flavorings and ingredients.

I call mine a butter pound cake simply because I use all butter in making my pound cake. Some recipes use cream cheese, while some use oil, but mine is with all the rich buttery flavor, hence the title butter pound cake.

How to Make

Ingredients

Cake

• Flour + baking powder + salt
• Butter
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Milk
• Vanilla extract

 Buttercream frosting

• Butter
• Powdered sugar (icing sugar)
• Milk (optional)
• Vanilla extract

Mixing the cake batter

• This is a butter cake, and made using the creaming method. This means the butter and sugar are creamed together before other ingredients are added in.

1. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy (on medium speed with an electric mixer). This is an important step for a fluffy cake, so be sure to beat these until they are really light. For the recipe below, this should take at least 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl at least once to make sure there is no butter or sugar left out unbeaten on the sides of the bowl.
2. Next, add in the eggs. Add them one at a time. Each time, beat until the eggs are fully incorporated before adding more. When making larger butter pound cakes, you can add the eggs two or three at a time. And don’t forget to scrape your bowl every now and then.
3. After the eggs, add the rest of the sifted dry ingredients and the milk. These should be alternated and added in batches. You can divide your flour mixture into 3 batches and the milk into 2. Start with the first batch of flour.
4. Fold it in well, then add the first batch of milk. Mix well. Repeat with the second batch of flour and milk and finish off with the third batch of flour. Finally, add the vanilla extract, give it a quick mix and pour batter into your prepared cake tins or baking pans.

Baking and storing the cake

• Bake the pound cakes in a preheated oven until a skewer or cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out without any wet batter. The top of the cakes should spring back when lightly pressed.
• Remove the cakes from the oven, let them rest in the cake tins for 2 minutes, and then turn them out onto wire rack to cool completely.
• If you are not going to serve the cakes immediately, wrap the cakes with plastic wrap (cling wrap) as soon as they turn warm and place them in the refrigerator until ready to use. This helps in keeping your cakes moist. When ready to use, remove the cakes from the fridge, let them come to room temperature before removing the cling wraps.

Decorating the cake

• To make the buttercream, place the butter and sifted powdered sugar in a bowl and beat until the butter and sugar turn light and creamy with a paddle attachment. Start with low speed and gradually increase to high speed. Add vanilla extract.
• If the mixture appears too stiff, add some milk and beat until smooth.
• To decorate the cake, level the tops and sandwich them with some buttercream.
• Give the stacked layers a thin coat of buttercream crumb coat and place the cake in the refrigerator for about 10 to 15 minutes until the crumb coat sets.
• While waiting for the crumb coat to set, fit a piping bag with a star tip (I used tip number 18) and fill it with the buttercream.
• Remove the butter pound cake from the fridge and pipe out tiny rosettes with the star tip all around the sides and top of the cake. Pipe them as close to one another as possible such that there is no gap between them. If there are gaps, cover them with simple buttercream stars.
• To complete the cake decoration, add gold dragees in random order all over the sides and top of the cake.

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Notes

Baking a loaf pound cake

• This pound cake can also be made in a loaf pan.
• Half the recipe in the recipe card below and bake the cake in a loaf pan measuring 8 inches by 4 inches.

Doubling or tripling the cake recipe

• I have provided cakes tin size guide in my recipe card below. Follow this if you wish to make larger cakes. Baking with too much batter in a single cake tin will require longer baking time, and this, in turn, can cause the sides of your cake to dry out while waiting for the cake center to cook.
• If you want tall cakes, it is best to bake more layers of the cake and stack them up rather than filling up all the batter in a single cake tin.
• For cakes larger than 10 inches in diameter, it is advisable to use cake strips or heating cores. These help the cakes to bake evenly and prevent them from drying out due to longer baking time.
• You can read all about these in my post here on how to use cake strips and heating cores for evenly baked cakes.

Tips for a moist texture

• Overbaking a butter pound cake will cause its texture to be dry. Under baking, on the other hand, can cause the cake to sink when you remove it from the oven.
• Always keep to the baking time indicated in the recipe and test for doneness by checking with a skewer inserted in the center of the cake at least 5 minutes before the baking time is up.
• If there is no wet batter sticking to the skewer, and the top of the cakes spring back when lightly pressed, the cakes are done and can be removed from the oven. Ideally, for best results, there should be soft cake crumbs sticking to your skewer. If the skewer comes out totally clean, the cake could have been over baked.

Storing the cake

• This butter pound cake can last for a good 4 to 5 days at room temperature provided it is handled without any moisture. If you wish to keep it longer, it is best refrigerated in an airtight container. Bring it back to room temperature before serving.
• The cake can also be made in advance and stored in the fridge for a good one week before using it. To do this, wrap the cake in plastic wrap (cling wrap) while it is still warm and refrigerate it. When ready to use, remove from the fridge, let it warm up to room temperature before removing the cling wrap and decorate or serve as you wish.

Other serving suggestions

• Other than baking in layers and frosting with buttercream, this butter pound cake can also be baked in a loaf pan or a bundt pan or tube pan.
• And instead of frosting with buttercream, you can also use chocolate ganache or cream cheese frosting.
• Other serving suggestions would be with whipped cream or ice cream and fresh fruit like fresh berries on the side.

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Like this easy classic cake recipe? Here are my other posts you should check out

• Marble Pound Cake
• Chocolate Cake Recipe
• Super Moist Vanilla Cake
• Orange Layer Cake with Orange Buttercream
• Butter Icing Recipe
• Old Fashioned Lemon Pound Cake
• Banana Pound Cake - Easy and Moist
• Lime Pound Cake with Easy Lime Glaze
• Matcha Pound Cake - Moist and Easy
• Super Moist Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake (the Best Ever!)

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my butter pound cake recipe. The cake tin size guide is in the notes section of the recipe card.

And that's my super delicious layered butter pound cake with icing.  

Happy Baking 🙂