MARDI GRAS POUND CAKE
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Mardi Gras Pound Cake, Mardi Gras isn’t the same without some version of King Cake! This
Mardi Gras Pound Cake
I haven’t shared a Mardi Gras Pound Cake recipe with you and I’m excited to share this one.
Traditional King Cake is made with a yeast dough flavored with cinnamon and vanilla. They are much like cinnamon rolls except shaped differently and decorated with colored sugar. Alternately, King Cakes are now filled with chocolate,
The problem with most store-bought King Cakes is that they’re dry. Dry King Cake and dry cinnamon rolls are the worst! Therefore, I made a traditional Mardi Gras King Cake that is moist and decadent. You’ll like it if you’re looking for a classic king cake recipe.
Mardi Gras Pound Cake
For the cake, I started with one of my favorite basic pound cake recipes. Eggs are the only leavener in this traditional recipe. It does not contain baking soda or baking powder in it. Therefore, the recipe as written below is correct.
Now, you may ask ‘How will it rise without baking powder and/or baking soda?’ Here’s why and how.
- You need to have all the ingredients at room temperature.
- When you cream the
butter and sugar together, you want to mix them until a pale yellow and very smooth. - Next, when you add the room temperature eggs into the
butter /sugar mixture, add them one at a time and beat just until the yellow disappears into the batter before adding the next egg. - Furthermore, don’t over-mix the batter after adding the flour and sour cream. At this point, if you overmix the batter, it will become tough.
For the cinnamon filling
I want more than just a thin ribbon of cinnamon running through the cake. Therefore, I mixed
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Mardi Gras Pound Cake Final tips
Using a light versus a dark pan, as well as setting it on a cookie sheet (which I do) to bake, will affect the baking time. I bake in a light pan on a round cookie sheet for my cakes.
Most importantly, keep an eye on your cake and start watching it closely after 60 minutes the first time you bake it. Note exactly what you used and how long you baked it for future reference.
I wrote a detailed post on How to Bake the Perfect Pound Cake. I recommend you hop over and read it.
As well, I recommend calibrating your oven once a year. Read How to Calibrate Your Oven here.
Mardi Gras Pound Cake
Mardi Gras colored sugars to garnish. #poundcake #cake #MardiGras #dessert #recipe #cinnamon #creamcheese #bundt
Items in blue & underlined below can be clicked for more detail or to purchase.
Ingredients
Filling
- 8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon ground
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour sifted then measured
- 1 large eggs at room temperature
Cake
- 1 cup butter at room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 6 large eggs at room temperature
- 8 ounces sour cream at room temperature, can also use buttermilk or Greek yogurt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour sifted, then measured
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar (aka confectioners) sifted then measured
- 2.5-3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream or whole milk
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract use clear vanilla if you don't want the icing tinted
- 2-3 tablespoons green sugar or sprinkles
- 2-3 tablespoons gold sugar or sprinkles
- 2-3 tablespoons purple sugar or sprinkles
Instructions
Filling
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together cream cheese, sugar, cinnamon, flour, and egg until smooth. Set aside.
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Grease a bundt or tube pan with solid vegetable shortening and sprinkle with sugar (or you can use flour). Alternately, you can use Wilton Cake Release.
- In another bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time mixing until the egg is just mixed in before adding the next egg. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides.
- Sift, then measure the flour. Add the salt to your flour. With your mixer on low, add the flour alternately with the sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides.
- Add the vanilla extract and mix it into the batter. At this point, do not overbeat the batter.
- Spoon ⅔s of the cake batter into your prepared pan. Spoon the cinnamon filling down the center of the batter. Top with remaining cake batter.
- Bake at 350°F for 60 minutes. Test for doneness. The cake is done when no crumbs or dry crumbs remain on the wooden skewer. Check every 5 minutes if your cake is not done at 60 minutes.
- Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before inverting it onto a serving tray. Cool completely before glazing.
Glaze
- Sift powdered sugar. Add heavy cream and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
- Spoon the glaze over the cake and allow it to harden. Decorated with colored sprinkles.
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Nutrition
Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are important to you, I recommend calculating them yourself.
Made this cake for Mardi Gras 2025. Followed the directions as written but, sadly, the cake was a failure. Baked at 350℉ for 60 minutes, the cake batter overflowed my Bundt pan and the cake did not completely cook, even after extending the cooking time about five minutes and covering the pan with foil to prevent overbrowning the top of the cake. The result was doughy, uncooked cake along with cake that completed the cooking process.
This recipe was missing a critical piece of information – the size of the Bundt pan. Without that information the assumption was to use what most recipes require which is the average size, oft used 12-cup Bundt pan. However, this cake needs a 15-cup Bundt pan; information that is missing from this recipe.
The cake that was cooked had good flavor, and I do believe this cake could be a success if using the correct sized pan. I would like to suggest adding that information to the recipe.
The pan that I use and recommend is listed at least twice, in the recipe narrative and linked to in the recipe card. As well, the first comments I answer the question of what pan I use. Almost every pound cake needs at least a 15 cup bundt or tube pan.
HI,
Your cake is beautiful. My question is, I prefer weighing my ingredients, is that an option with your recipe? Or will it change it?
I don’t believe you can automatically change that in the recipe card and would have to do it manually.
What size bundt pan are you using?
I use this one.
Beautiful cake. Looks so delicious. Texture is amazing.
so like to weigh ingretents