Cream Cheese Pound Cake
by Sommer Collier — last updated on Apr 10, 2025 
Best Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe – Learn How to Make Pound Cake light and fluffy. Our Easy Pound Cake requires only 8 ingredients (mostly pantry staples) + is great with toppings!
Cream Cheese Pound Cake is the BEST!
A pound cake is the perfect simple dessert. It’s rich and buttery, with a delicate vanilla flavor and tight, moist crumb. It’s a hearty no-fuss cake; you don’t have to decorate or worry about transporting it to events.
Our Cream Cheese Pound Cake is a marvelous platform for creativity. Although it tastes amazing on its own, you can mix add-ins into the batter before baking, or dress it up with toppings and sauces!
Sommer’s Recipe Notes
Why do I think Cream Cheese Pound Cake is the best? It’s because of what the cream cheese does to the flavor and texture of the pound cake…
Pound Cakes are meant to be heavy cakes. It’s said the original pound cake recipe was made with one pound each of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. However, pound cakes can be a little too dense and heavy, in my opinion. That’s where the cream cheese comes in.
Adding cream cheese to the cake batter lightens and lifts the batter while baking, because cream cheese tends to puff as it bakes. This makes the pound cake slightly softer and airier than traditional pound cake.
It also adds a very mild twang to the otherwise pure rich vanilla-butter flavor. The little bit of tanginess balances the flavors, so the pound cake does not taste too sweet.
I like to bake pound cakes in a bundt pan, because it creates a larger cake with a decorative finish. Also, bundt pans usually have a good non-sticking coating on the inside that makes it easy to flip the cake out of the pan.
However, if you do not own a bundt pan, you can make this recipe in two standard 9-inch loaf pans. In loaf pans, the baking time should be reduced to 70-80 minutes.
Ingredients You Need
If you get anxious about holiday baking, this easy Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe is a great place to start. You only need a few key ingredients to make something that tastes impressive.
- Butter – Softened. Always go with unsalted butter when you have the choice.
- Cream cheese – Softened. Full fat. To enhance the flavor and texture.
- Sugar – To dust the pan and sweeten the pound cake.
- Flour – The base of the batter.
- Eggs – To bind and lift the batter.
- Vanilla extract – For deep nostalgic flavor.
- Baking Powder – To help the cake rise.
- Salt – To enhance the overall flavor.
How To Make Pound Cake
Ready to learn how to make a perfect pound cake? Find the full Cream Cheese Pound Cake recipe with ingredient proportions, detailed instructions, and video tutorial in the printable form at the bottom of the post.
Glaze For Pound Cake
You can also make a simple glaze to pour over the pound cake by mixing…
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 – 4 tablespoons milk (or heavy cream for a thicker glaze)
- 1-2 teaspoons flavor extract (This could be vanilla, lemon, rum, coconut, strawberry, etc.)
Be sure to whisk the glaze well, so there are no clumps. Then pour or drizzle over the cake.
If the cream cheese cake is warm, the glaze will most likely soak into the cake. If you want it to sit up on top of the cake, make the glaze very thick, using less liquid and more powdered sugar. Then wait until the cake is completely cool to apply the glaze.
Other Homemade Toppings
Once you bake homemade pound cake from scratch, you might want to dazzle it up when it’s time for dessert.
Here are a few topping ideas
- Salted Caramel Sauce
- Chocolate Ganache
- Chocolate Gravy
- Warm Blueberry Sauce
- Raspberry Syrup
- or Fresh Cut Fruit
Frequently Asked Questions
Pound cakes do take a long time to bake. However, if yours is taking longer than expected, you may have a faulty oven thermostat.
Place a new hanging oven thermometer off the center rack in your oven, and adjust the temperature accordingly. (Your oven manual, or youtube, can show you how to recalibrate your oven.)
Absolutely! Wrap it very well with plastic wrap, then a layer of foil, and freeze for up to 6 months.
Sure! Try not to mix in any ingredient that would add extra moisture (like chopped fruit). However, you can certainly add in chocolate chips, chopped nuts, or dried fruits.
No, this cake can stay out at room temperature for 3 to 5 days, but you can keep it in the fridge if you would like to. Wrap it well and refrigerate for up to 10 days.
Looking For More Festive (Yet Easy) Cake Recipes?
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- Pina Colada Sheet Cake
- Kahlua Coffee Cake Recipe
- Homemade Strawberry Cake from Scratch Recipe
- Lemon Ricotta Cake (Crepe Cake Recipe)
- Easy Magic Custard Cake Recipe
- Best Lemon Buttermilk Cake Recipe
- Perfect Southern Caramel Cake Recipe (with Salted Caramel Frosting)
- Better Than Sex Cake (Retro Cake Recipe)
- Best Carrot Cake Recipe
- Chocolate Pudding Cake
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- Pistachio Pudding Poke Cake
More Easy Pound Cake Recipes
- Pumpkin Pound Cake with Chocolate Ganache Recipe
- Pecan Praline Pound Cake Recipe
- Buttery Sweet Potato Pound Cake
- Mint Chocolate Chip Pound Cake Recipe
- Chocolate Pound Cake with Chocolate Glaze
Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened (3 sticks)
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 3 cups granulated sugar, divided
- 6 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (stir in bag, spoon in cup, level)
Instructions
- Set out the butter, eggs, and cream cheese to come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Move one oven rack to the center of the oven and remove any racks above it.
- Pull out a standard 12-cup capacity bundt pan. Grease the bundt pan with extra butter or shortening, then scoop 1/4 cup sugar into the pan and shake it around until the fat is well coated in sugar. Dump out any excess sugar. Set aside.
- Place the softened butter and cream cheese in the bowl on an electric. Beat on high until the mixture is totally smooth. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula, then add the remaining 2 3/4 cups sugar. Beat on high again for 3-5 minutes to cream the ingredients until very light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl again.
- Turn the mixer on low and beat in the eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt. Then slowly add the flour a little at a time, until fully combined. Once the batter is smooth, turn off the mixer, as to not overmix the batter.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Bake on the center rack for 80-90 minutes. After 80 minutes, test the cake by inserting a toothpick deep into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, take the pound cake out of the oven.
- Let the cream cheese pound cake rest in the pan for 15 minutes. Then carefully flip the cake onto a platter or baking rack.
OMG This cake is amazing. Its no heavy tasting very light. It was very moist and so delicious. Everyone loved it. Thank you for a great recipe.
Hello
I’ve made this cake before and it is delicious.
One problem I had this last time. The top came out very crispy which I liked but after I took it out of the oven to cool the crispy top separated from the cake
When I flipped it although it looked great I just don’t understand why it slightly sunk.
Have any idea to prevent this or why this happens.
Hi Ms E,
Hmmm… Any chance you need to recalibrate your oven? The temperature might be a bit off. You can search youtube for a video on your oven make and model. Then follow the directions to calibrate.
Otherwise, I would suggest loosely placing a piece of foil over the top of the cake, once it has set in the oven. Don’t place the foil over the cake while the batter is still wet.
I am not a baker but I want to try this recipe for Thanksgiving. I have a few questions first. Why not use cake flour instead of all purpose flour? Can I use Splenda instead of sugar and get good results?
Hi Nicole!
Cake flour is great when you are trying to achieve a super light texture and crumb. However, pound cake is a cake meant to have a bit of density to it, therefore cake flour is not neccessary. You can use any 1-to-1 ratio sweetener in this recipe. It will, of course, have the aftertaste of the sweetener you select, but it will still bake well.
Seriously the BEST RECIPE EVER ! 2 years. 2 years and countless cheese pound cake recipes later. I’m not even exaggerating. The cake is solid yet airy yet moist yet cheesy yet buttery… everything it should be. Thank you so much !
Esp the tip on using bread loaf pans. I used those and they were ready in about 65 min as opposed to 70 . Perfection. Thank you so much for giving me and my family such joy. We are loving it !
Very tasty, but luckily I checked the cake around 40 minutes. The top was browning and by the end, was looking very dark. Was done at 60 minutes. When turned out of pan, that side looked great.
it was great ,the sugar crust was excellent
I prepared and baked this cake exactly to the recipe and baked the full time listed in recipe, but it was very underbaked despite appearing done. When I tested with toothpick, I had moist (not wet) crumbs, which I thought was good. Obviously, I should have baked longer til no crumbs. My oven temp is accurate (I checked). I baked in a tube pan that I use for angel food cake-could this be the difference? I did use the foil about halfway-maybe too soon. The outer crust was delicious so I am determined to get this right!
Hi Cheri,
So sorry about that! When you say you checked your oven temperature, did you use an additional oven thermometer?
I ask because my first thought is that your oven temperature is off. That is a VERY common occurance. We often tell readers to use a hanging oven thermometer, that can be purchased for $5-10, to check accuracy. Then calibrate your oven to the temp on the new thermometer.
My only other thought is that if you checked the cake multiple times, opening the oven door over and over, that may have caused an issue.
I hope this helps. Please report back!
Absolutely delicious! Not too heavy or greasy! Adding to my Cottage business! Thanks so much for sharing!!
I made this! This is so good!
This is one of the best pound cakes we have ever had, wish you had a chocolate version! My MIL was a pound cake queen, problem is that she was a southern Alabama cook who didn’t write stuff down and when she did it was never exact. I used the soft butter we keep out for bread to very heavily grease the pan and I heavily sugared it, lol, the crust was fantastic! Hubby loved it, so that was a huge win!!
Made this cake today.. I’ve made a few pound cakes … BUT this will now be my go to.. moist and soft.. ummm
I never leave recipe reviews, but this pound cake is heavenly! I definitely took my time at the different stages of smoothing the cream cheese and butter then whipping in the sugar and eggs. It was velvety, airy, light, rich and dense all at the same time. Definitely a new staple!