MILLION DOLLAR POUND CAKE
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Million Dollar Pound Cake has a fine, rich, smooth texture with a classic vanilla flavor. It’s a classic for a reason and you’ll understand the title ‘million dollar’ after one taste! The cake recipe is always a crowd-pleaser!
Welcome back to my Pound Cake series!!! Are you tired of Pound Cake recipes yet?
So far I’ve tested the Whipping Cream Pound Cake, Sour Cream Pound Cake, Cream Cheese Pound Cake, Amaretto Pound Cake, and Chocolate Pound Cake. Let me just tell you they are all good!
I’m becoming quite the Pound Cake expert. I have tested almost all the basic Pound Cake recipes that I’m going to test. But, the series isn’t going to end. I have kicked up versions with add-ins and unusual flavors for you next. Just wait!!
This Million Dollar Pound Cake is buttery with a soft texture and small crumb. It’s very dense and moist. It is very, very similar to the Sour Cream Pound Cake, but ever so slightly more moist with a crusty top, not all Pound Cakes have that crusty exterior. Something about that crusty top makes it for me, it just seems more like the old-fashioned authentic pound cake.
Million Dollar Pound Cake
A bonus of the Million Dollar Pound Cake recipe is you probably have all the ingredients on hand to make it at any time. There are no random ingredients, so if you have a well-stocked pantry you can whip this up without trudging to the store.
The popularity of Pound Cakes in part is their versatility. You can enjoy them plain, with ice cream, caramel sauce, chocolate, or a fruit sauce. I really enjoy this tart Raspberry Sauce (or strawberry sauce) and vanilla ice cream. If you’re going to splurge, splurge big, right?
Tips…
I want to stress a few things when attempting my pound cake recipes, or any cake recipe in general. Review my post Baking Cakes: Problems and Tips. Some quick tips I have also listed some below.
- As with most baking, make sure your
butter is at room temperature and soft. It will indent easily when mashed with your finger, but not be oily. - Your eggs and other dairy ingredients also need to be at room temperature. They will incorporate much easier into the other ingredients at room temperature, making for a lighter, fluffier cake.
- Measure your flour correctly using the ‘spoon and level’ method. I wrote this post on how to measure flour correctly, you may want to refresh yourself if needed. Measuring flour incorrectly can result in as much as 150% more flour than is called for! #ThatsALot
- Use good quality ingredients. Read some of the differences in name-brand and store-bought ingredients here. Use real
butter , not margarine. I use saltedbutter . You can use salted or unsaltedbutter depending on your personal preference.
Check out my Old Fashioned Blue Ribbon Pound Cake, the process for mixing is the same as this Million Dollar Pound Cake.
More…
- Traditionally Pound Cakes were leavened with only eggs. The recipe is correct as written, there is no baking soda or baking powder in it.
- When baking cakes especially pound cakes, cheesecakes, and souffles, I’ve found it super important to use the correct temperature. Now, you may think you have your oven set at the right temperature, but you need to calibrate your oven to be certain. It’s may read correctly on the outside, but the actual temperature on the inside be way off! All you need to do is use an oven-safe thermometer. Set it inside your oven. Set your oven at 350 degrees F, when the oven beeps that it’s up to temperature does the thermometer inside reading 350 degrees? Now repeat this at 450 degrees? If your oven doesn’t read correctly, use your owner’s manual or research your oven brand and model online to determine how to reset the temperature controls.
- I recommend a 10×4-inch, 12-cup bundt pan (that’s larger than a typical bundt pan) or a tube pan.
- To change the pan size, read this to determine the baking time.
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Million Dollar Pound Cake
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Save To Your Recipe BoxIngredients
- 1 pound butter at room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 6 large eggs at room temperature
- 4 cups all-purpose flour sifted then measured
- 3/4 cup whole milk or 2% milk
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat and bake at 350 degrees F.
- Grease and flour a 10×4-inch, 12 cup bundt pan (that's larger than a typical bundt pan) or a tube pan.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time until well incorporated.
- Slowly add flour and milk alternately beginning and ending with flour.
- Mix until blended after each addition.
- Stir in almond and vanilla flavorings.
- Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees 1 hour and 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Cool cake in the pan on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes before inverting and removing from the pan onto a serving tray.
- Store covered on the countertop for 3 days or in the refrigerator for 5 days. Freeze in an airtight container up to 3 months.
Notes
- You can use salted or unsalted butter. Use what you prefer the taste of. Do not substitute margarine.
- You can substitute Crisco solid vegetable shortening instead of butter. I don’t recommend using generic or other brand.
A former colleague of mine would the most delicious Kentucky Butter Cake for Christmas parties, but being a typical southern cook, he refused to share his recipe. I love and miss that cake! I’ve tried repeatedly to copy it, but the crumb is never right. It was a dense cake with a very small crumb. Even your KBSC has a larger crumb and it is not that dense. But your million dollar cake, comes close in terms of crumb. WHAT exactly defines the variety in crumb texture of pound cakes?
I don’t know if other factors determine the texture, but using baking powder and/or baking soda does change it. I get comments all the time asking if I’ve accidentally left out those in my pound cake recipes but a true pound cake is leavened with eggs only. You’re right the KBSC pound cake has a different texture and it has both baking soda and baking powder if I remember correctly. I’m curious myself now if this Million Dollar Pound cake would be even better with the butter sauce over it?
I tried the Million Dollar Pound Cake; I had never made a pound cake before, but this one is truly “Million Dollar!” A great cake that tastes rich, but not too sweet. I highly recommend doing what the directions say about grease and FLOUR cake pan. I used PAM spray along with powered sugar and the combination broke the cake in half when I inverted it. (I just have been munching on the broken pieces…)
I have always used my mother’s recipe for pound cake since I was little. I decided to do something different so I came across this and tried it. I was surprised that it did not call for milk or seven up or anything. In guess that is why there are additional eggs. It was much simpler to mix and I know it is going to be a hit. Will let you know soon. It in the oven now. Thanx a million.
Super easy to make. My cake did over flowed, as I was dumping the batter in the pan I started to make a couple of cupcakes, should of followed my first thought. I didn’t have any whole milk so I used buttermilk.
I was concerned about the cake sticking to the pan, but it just plopped out with no trouble . This wil be my go to pound cake.
What’s the proper way to remove the cake from a tube pan? I always have a problem with this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37FwFTS3P9Y
Hi- I have a special guy requesting pound cake cupcakes and this recipe looks wonderful! Would you keep the temp the same? And how long would you think they need to bake in a cupcake pan?
Experts claim you can substitute any cake pan with another, but I’ve never had good luck with changing them with pound cakes since they are so dense. The recommendation is that this much batter will make 24 to 36 (fill regular size muffin tin 3/4 full) and bake 20 to 25 minutes. I would start testing them at 20 minutes.
Just baked the Million Dollar Pound Cake. For my oven 1 HR 25 minutes would of been over doing it. Checked at 1 hr 15 minutes and it was perfect. To be sure keep checking it after the first hour goes by. By the way reduce the flour from 4 cups to 3.
If you reduce the amount of flour that’s why it took less time for your cake to bake
Hi Paula! Have you ever heard of
“Tiger Pound Cake”… if so, do you have a good recipe?
Thanks, Dardanella
Is it the cake that has a container of pecan frosting in the cake?
Hey Paula,
I have been on the prowl for a good eggnog pound cake recipe. I know you have one here on your site, but as a Southern girl, I like my pounds cakes with that proverbial pound of butter, lol. So, I used this recipe and tweeked it a bit. I added eggnog in-place of the milk, lessened the amount of vanilla cuz I used a prepared eggnog that contained vanilla and I added some nutmeg. I also left out the almond. It turned out awesome. I only made 1/2 a recipe cuz this was a test cake. Thank you for the recipe.
I made this pound cake expecting great things. Unfortunately I found it extremely dry and bland. I don’t know what could have gone wrong as I followed recipe to the tee. So disappointing :(.
Have you calibrated your oven Most of the time I find that when this happens your oven is actually hotter than it indicates. https://www.callmepmc.com/bake-the-perfect-pound-cake/
I made this tonight and I had to throw it away. The only thing I could think of that was wrong was I had old flour and I used “imperial” butter from Dollar General. Do you think that was my problem?
Old flour def could have been the problem. If it was real butter that should have been okay, but if it was margarine that would be a problem as well.
Need to clarify: It is 4 sticks of butter for this recipe?
1 pound is 2 cups. Butter is mostly sold in sticks only in the Southern US. I have readers all over the world that don’t know what ‘sticks’ are.
We have sticks in the north east too. Lol I hate the two stick boxes though.
oh that’s good to know. It seems random that they are boxed that way, I wonder how it started.
I am known for my pound cakes, but I am always looking for new variations – our standard favorites are cold oven and a local church member’s mother’s almond pound cake.
I have a question what is the scientific reason for beginning and ending with the flour?
Linda, I’m so sorry it’s been so long replying, I had to do research and kept forgetting. This is what I found.
“It’s all about the butter. That whipped butter and sugar mixture cannot absorb much liquid. If you began with liquid, or worse added all the liquid, the butter will become saturated, the batter will separate, and the liquid will stay on top. At that point, adding dry ingredients will absorb that liquid but the resulting batter will be wrong and the cake will be heavy. You’ll have tasty concrete, not subtle cake.
So, follow those instructions and begin with the dry, alternate with the liquid, and carefully craft your batter. After each addition of the dry ingredients, mix only until most of it is incorporated. Some streaks of dry are fine. If you try to get every round of dry ingredients totally incorporated, you’ll begin activation of the gluten in the flour. Your cake will be tough, not light.”
What if I don’t use a stand mixer? I am on vacation and only have access to an ’80s sunbeam electric hand mixer. Should I expect the cake to rise as well without being able to use my Kitchenaid stand mixer back home? I have made this cake several times with superb results, and always with a stand mixer. Thank you so much!
The hand mixer will be fine to use as long as you fluff the butter and sugar then the eggs. Your
arm may get a little tired.
My great aunt gave me her pound cake recipe. It is a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs and a pound of flour. And then she said to “beat the shit out of it!”
Love that!!!
The Million Dollar Pound cake was amazing. I’ve made it 4 times already and it’s already a family favorite. Follow the recipe to the letter and you can’t go wrong! I used more almond instead of the vanilla because we like the almond better. Turned out amazing! Thanks for posting this recipe!
You are so welcome. I like the almond better as well, tastes more like my grandmother’s pound cake.
Well I just made this and was so excited to try it but as I was ‘re-reading what to do once it came out of the oven I realized I made a critical error and added 6 cups of flour instead of 4, so although I made a very pretty cake it is not tasty. I will try again and can’t wait to actually enjoy it.