Gluten-Free Sour Cream Pound Cake

Vanilla adds a light, simple flavor to this classic gluten-free pound cake recipe. With the addition of sour cream, it makes a moist, tender, and versatile cake. Serve it plain, or top it with whipped cream and fresh fruit for a seasonal twist. It's also great grilled!

I'm sure most of us love an elaborate dessert - a sprinkle-laden ombré cake or a multi-layered, meringue-topped cupcake - but there's something to be said about the simple recipes. They're the go-tos, the everyday options, the recipes that bring out the real comfort of baking. This sour cream pound cake couldn't be more representative of a classic, down-to-earth recipe. It's a gluten-free spin on a basic vanilla pound cake, with a light, sweet flavor. In the spirit of keeping it simple, this cake is excellent on its own, but you can also do what I did here: grill it with pineapple slices, top it with whipped cream, and turn it into the ultimate summertime treat.

Jump to:

• What is a pound cake anyway?
• Ingredients needed
• How to make pound cake from scratch
• Serving tips
• How to grill pound cake
• Recipe FAQ
• More gluten-free cakes you'll love
• Recipe Card
• 💬 Reviews

What is a pound cake anyway?

A pound cake is a dense, buttery, lightly-flavored cake that's typically baked in a loaf or bundt pan. Traditionally, it's made with a pound each of four ingredients - butter, flour, eggs, and sugar - hence the name. Usually, you'll see this classic dessert served plain, dusted with powdered sugar, or topped with a simple icing glaze.

This variation sticks pretty close to the traditional ratios, but incorporates a few tweaks to keep the cake moist and avoid the texture issues that tend to plague gluten-free recipes. Although it doesn't require any milk or cream cheese - two common ingredients added to pound cakes - it does use sour cream as an added dairy component. This helps the cake stay tender and moist, and adds a subtle dimension to the overall flavor.

To keep things easy, this cake is baked in a basic loaf pan rather than a bundt. It may look humble, but that's nothing a little whipped cream and fruit garnish can't fix!

Ingredients needed

Since this is a fairly simple recipe, there's only a few staple baking ingredients involved. As usual, Sprouts is my go-to grocery store for stocking up. They'll have everything you need to bake this gluten-free pound cake!

Baking ingredients: Gluten-free all-purpose flour with xanthan gum, corn starch, sugar, salt, baking soda, and vanilla extract.

• The corn starch is used in combination with all-purpose flour to create a makeshift gluten-free cake flour of sorts, which prevents the crumb from becoming too spongey. Don't skip it!
• Spring for the real vanilla extract (versus imitation flavoring) for this recipe. Since it's the main flavor component here, the splurge is worth it.

Dairy and eggs: Unsalted butter, sour cream, and large eggs.

• Opt for the best butter you can afford; Sprouts carries quite a few great options to choose from! Higher quality butter tends to be more expensive, but it also tends to have slightly more fat, and a better overall flavor. Since (again) this is a very simply-flavored cake, this is the kind of recipe where the quality of your ingredients will have a bigger impact.
• Make sure you use large eggs . You'll need 5 of them, and using eggs that are bigger or smaller could throw off the ratios in the recipe.

A final note on ingredients: It's extremely important that your butter, eggs, and sour cream are all at room temperature for this recipe. If they're not, your batter won't come together properly - and nobody wants that!

How to make pound cake from scratch

This recipe uses the creaming method to create a cake with a tender, tight, buttery crumb. For best results, you'll need a stand mixer, so lug that thing onto your countertop and let's make a sour cream pound cake!

Step one: Oven and pan prep. Preheat your oven to 350ºF, and grease a standard 9"x5" loaf pan with non-stick baking spray.

Step two: Combine the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together your gluten-free flour, corn starch, salt, and baking soda.

Step three: Cream butter, sugar, and eggs. Combine room-temperature butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of your mixer. Using the paddle attachment, cream (beat) them together on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy.

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Tip: At every step of the mixing process, use your spatula to scrape down the bowl and beater as needed. This will ensure all of the ingredients get incorporated evenly.

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Next, add the eggs one at a time on medium-low speed, beating each in fully before moving on to the next. Once they're all in there, add the vanilla extract and keep beating on medium speed until everything is evenly combined. Note that the batter tends to curdle at this point, no matter how careful you are while incorporating the eggs. Don't panic! We'll fix that in step four.

Step four: Alternating adding the liquid and dry ingredients. Turning the mixer back to low speed, add about ⅓ of your dry ingredient mixture. Once that's mostly dispersed into the batter, add half of the sour cream. Continue with this pattern, (a third of the dry ingredients, the second half of the sour cream, and the final third of the dry mixture) until all of the ingredients are evenly combined. At this point, the batter should be thick and oh-so-smooth.

Step five: Bake. Transfer the batter to your prepared loaf pan, using a spatula to make sure the batter gets spread to every corner and edge. Add a couple more light, gentle turns of your spatula at the end to smooth out the top surface. Then, pop that loaf in the oven and bake it for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. When done, you should have a well-risen loaf with a perfectly golden crust. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean OR with just a few moist crumbs.

Step six: Cool. Set the loaf pan over a wire cooling rack for about 30 minutes. Then, carefully flip the loaf out of the pan, directly onto the rack, to finish cooling.

Serving tips

This beauty of this gluten-free pound cake is in its simplicity - it can easily be dressed up, but that's not a necessity. Serve it at room temperature with homemade caramel iced coffee for a coffee-shop style breakfast, or top it with whipped cream and fresh fruit for a slightly more elegant dessert. It's also excellent toasted, but if you really want to go a step above and beyond, you can grill it!

How to grill pound cake

Grilling - like toasting - helps caramelize the sugar in this cake to really amplify the flavor. It's easy to do, and you can also grill fruit for a garnish while you're at it. Pineapples, apricots, or peaches would all be great options.

To grill this pound cake, I like to cut thick slices (about 1" wide) and brush both sides with melted butter. Then, toss them on a grill at medium-low heat for 1-2 minutes a side, or just long enough to get those perfectly-golden grill marks. If you decide to grill fruit with it, just sprinkle the fruit with some raw sugar first to increase the caramelization. You may need an additional 2-4 minutes for the fruit; look for visual cues to gauge when they're done.

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Tip: Place the cake slices on the grill at an angle to make pretty diagonal grill marks!

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Recipe FAQ

More gluten-free cakes you'll love

If you're looking for something light and summery - but perhaps more chocolatey than this recipe - try my chocolate financier layer cake. It's a naked cake that uses mascarpone whipped cream as a frosting, with fresh berries and mint for garnish.

This mini marble cake is a great middle-of-the-road option, swirled with chocolate AND vanilla cake batter. It's topped with a light, tangy blackberry cream cheese frosting.

For the fruit lovers, this strawberry layer cake is my number one recommendation. Roasting your fruit is the key to making the most incredible made-from-scratch strawberry cake, and the frosting on this tastes just like a milkshake!

And lastly, another perfect cake for summer - chocolate raspberry ice cream cake! It's a rich, fudgy cake layered with raspberry-swirled vanilla ice cream, chocolate ganache, and whipped cream.

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If you make this vanilla pound cake, I'd love to hear about it! You can rate and review this recipe in the comments section below. Tag me (@brighteyedbaker) in an Instagram photo of the finished product and I'll give you a shoutout in my stories!

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