This strawberry pound cake recipe from scratch is the perfect spring dessert. With fresh strawberries folded into the sour cream pound cake and topped with a strawberry cream cheese glaze, it’s bound to be a hit at your next party!
One of my favorite memories growing up was heading to a local farm where you pick all the strawberries you could possibly carry. Now as a kid, that basically meant 1 in the bucket, 1 in my mouth. Needless to say I love my summer berry recipes .
And whatever we did end up taking home, meant strawberries went into everything.
So this year, I decided to throw some into a pound cake. I’ve made a Blueberry Pound Cake version of this Old Fashioned Sour Cream Pound Cake, and Lemon Raspberry Bundt Cake version too. This time, strawberries were going to get their chance to shine.
I love this pound cake so much if you couldn’t tell. It’s made with sour cream and butter so you end up with a moist, tender pound cake that can’t be beat.
What Do I Need To Make A Strawberry Pound Cake?
For The Cake:
- Dry Ingredients: Flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda
- Wet Ingredients: Unsalted butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and sourcream
- Fresh, chopped strawberries
For The Glaze:
- Cream cheese
- Powdered Sugar
- Heavy Cream
- Vanilla
- Freeze Dried Strawberries
How To Make Strawberry Pound Cake – Step By Step
1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Sift Your Dry Ingredients. This strawberry pound cake recipe starts by sifting your properly measured flour. Now I know sifting might no be your favorite thing. But in order to end up with a light and fluffy cake in the end that rises properly sifting is key. These are the sifters I use from Amazon. So add in your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and a little bit of salt and sift away.
3. Cream Your Butter And Sugar Together. In your stand mixer you are going to want to cream softened butter (here are 4 easy ways to soften your butter in a pinch!) and sugar. You want to do this on medium speed for about 2-3 minutes.
Baking 101
Having properly softened butter is important so that the sugar can basically punch holes in the butter. Those little holes are going to be filled with air. Those pockets of air will expand, and be filled with the gasses created from our leavening agents helping expand those pockets and make your cake rise. If your butter is not at room temperature and too cold, the sugar will not be able to punch through the butter properly and create those air pockets and your cake won’t rise properly.
4. Add The Eggs One At A Time. Once it’s all light and fluffy, add in your room temperature eggs one at a time. Make sure your eggs are room temperature before adding the to the creamed butter mixture.
Heather’s Baking Tip
Place your eggs in a bowl of warm water for about 10 minutes before you add them into your bowl. If your eggs are too cold going in the bowl it will seize up all that butter you just creamed in the previous step.And just be sure to add them one at a time, so you don’t overwhelm the mixture.
4. Alternate Your Dry Ingredients And Sourcream/Vanilla. In a small mixing bowl, you want to mix together the sour cream and vanilla extract.
Then it’s time to alternate the sour cream (with a bit of vanilla stirred in) and your sifted ingredients. Sour cream is what makes this cake so darn moist.
Baking 101
When you cream your butter and sugar together, you introduce air into the batter. This air that is introduced is what gives the cake a tender crumb. When you go to add the dry ingredients you want to introduce them gradually. If you introduce them gradually, you won’t deflate all that air you introduced during the creaming process. Basically a major bummer.
Add The Strawberries
Start by dicing your fresh strawberries. I used fresh strawberries in this cake. No artificial nothing for me thanks.
Heather’s Baking Tip
To ensure the strawberries don’t sink in the batter toss them first with a tablespoon of flour. It’s what I do to help keep my chocolate chips from sinking too.
Then go ahead and add the strawberries to the mixture. You want to make sure to not over mix. Just stir them in gently, and once mixed in stop stirring.
Now your batter is done. So go ahead and grease that pan. I like to either use shortening a dusting of flour or I like using Baker’s Joy, a cooking spray with flour added.
Then you want to spoon the batter into your prepared pan, or in your loaf pan if you are baking it in that and bake on the center rack of your oven until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Heather’s Baking Tip
Because of the shape of a bundt pan, if you grease it too early the grease you use can fall down the sides of the pan. So wait until you grease your pan until right before you add your batter.
Make sure to cool on a wire rack and once cool then glaze. I allow the cake to cool in the bundt pan for about 10 minutes before removing onto the cooling rack. If you remove the cake immediately it can fall apart on you.
How To Make The Strawberry Cream Cheese Glaze
Oh but wait, we aren’t done yet. We need to make some glaze. Oh this cream cheese glaze. Be still my heart. I was dipping extra strawberries in this glaze. I just couldn’t help myself.
This glaze has some typical ingredients- cream cheese (for a bit of tanginess), powdered sugar (for sweetness of course), heavy cream (for richness and something to thin it out), and vanilla (for a bit of flavor)- but it also has a secret weapon. Yes my glazes come with secret weapons.
Freeze dried strawberries.
Use Freeze Dried Strawberries
I tried making theglaze with fresh strawberries and there was that whole seed and too much liquid thing going on. So how do you pack a punch of strawberry flavor without adding extra liquid? Freeze. Dried. Strawberries.
You can pulverize them in a food processor or simply place in a zip-loc bag and crush them with a rolling pin. I prefer the latter. No need to bust out my processor. No extra dishes to wash. I was able to crush every strawberry into a fine powder (my food processor wasn’t quite able to accomplish this), and it’s one heck of a way to get out any frustrations.
P.S. I found my strawberries in the organic/health food aisle. But if you can’t find any, you can always get them on Amazon of course.
So once the cake has cooled go ahead and drizzle this over your cake. Then cut a slice. Eat. Repeat. Tell yourself you’re getting fresh strawberries and doing something good for yourself 😉 I won’t tell.
Recipe FAQ’s
Yes you can bake this in two 9×5 loaf pans. The cakes will take about 40-45 minutes in the smaller pans.
You can store this cake at room temperature for up to 3 days, wrapped in either plastic wrap or tinfoil. Make sure it’s completely cool before you store it. .
Or you can freeze the cake as well. Wrap the cake up in plastic wrap, then a layer of tinfoil and freeze for up to 3 months! Simply thaw at room temperature.
More Cake Recipes
Strawberry Pound cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2 1/2 cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour *spooned and leveled
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pint strawberries hulled and diced
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 226 grams) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 2 1/4 cups (446 grams) granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 1 cup (227 grams) sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Strawberry Cream Cheese Glaze
- 4 ounces cream cheese softened to room temperature
- 2 cups (227 grams) powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)
- 6 Tablespoons (84 g grams) heavy cream I’ve also used milk or water!
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1.2 ounces freeze-dried strawberries crushed to a powder
Instructions
- Prep oven and pan. Position a rack in the middle of your oven. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F/177°C).
- Sift dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Remove a tablespoon of the flour mixture and toss with the diced strawberries (this helps the strawberries from not sinking to the bottom of your cake). Set both aside.
- Combine sour cream and vanilla. In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together the vanilla extract and sour cream.
- Cream butter and sugar. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or a in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add eggs. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the mixing bowl well after each addition and mix until blended.
- Alternate flour and sour cream. Add the flour mixture and sour cream mixture alternately to butter-sugar-egg mixture, in 3 batches, beginning and ending with the flour. Do not overmix at this point. Stop stirring once you see the last of the flour has been stirred in. With a wooden spoon or spatula fold in the diced strawberries.
- Add strawberries. With a wooden spoon or spatula fold in the diced strawberries.
- Prepare bundt pan. Grease and flour one bundt cake pan. I like to grease with either shortening and a dusting of flour, or cooking spray (I like using a cooking spray with flour) and then dust with flour. You can also use two 9×5" loaf pans and grease/flour those instead.
- Bake the cake. Pour batter into pan. Bake in a preheated 350°F oven for approximately 50-60 minutes. (If baking in a loaf pan, divide the batter between the two pans and bake for 40-45 minutes). The cake is done when a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Allow cake to sit in the pan for 10 minutes before turning the cake out onto a wire rack to further cool. Allow to cool before glazing.
- Make the glaze. Mix all ingredients until smooth. Pour over top of cake and serve. For a thicker glaze use less heavy cream.
Notes
- Storage: You can store this bread at room temperature for up to 3 days, wrapped in either plastic wrap or tinfoil. Make sure it’s completely cool before you store it. Or you can freeze the bread (I recommend unglazed) as well. Wrap the bread up in plastic wrap, then a layer of tinfoil and freeze for up to 3 months! Simply thaw at room temperature.
- Freezing: Or you can freeze the cake (I recommend unglazed) as well. Wrap the bread up in plastic wrap, then a layer of tinfoil and freeze for up to 3 months! Simply thaw at room temperature.
- Freeze dried strawberries: If you can’t find any you can try replacing with some strawberry jam or strawberry extract. You can always add a touch of red food coloring to achieve a more pink color if desired.
- Sour Cream: Full fat Greek yogurt is a good replacement.
Tinu Franklin says
Hi! I love how informative and great your articles are. Can you recommend any other blogs that accept a Food guest post or or guest writers? Thanks a lot!
Heather says
Hi Tinu, I don’t know of any at this time, but I’ll keep it mind!
Carl Calloway says
I baked your recipe, and it is one of the best recipes I’ve tried, and is everything you said! I’m enjoying it so much I’m thinking about not sharing ☺️
Tayler Ross says
This strawberry pound cake is always a hit with my family! Perfectly moist and delicious and always a winner!
Heather says
so glad you loved it!
Anita says
OMG, this is so good! Freeze dried strawberries is my new favorite ingredient for baking.
Mirlene says
One of my favorite flavors in a cake! Love the strawberry glaze icing. I can’t help but have two slices!
Dana says
This was so good, and the freeze-dried strawberries make ALL the difference in the icing!