We Tried Ina Garten's “Perfect” Pound Cake—And Here’s What We Thought

Southern Living staffers taste and review the Barefoot Contessa's most Southern recipes.

In the South, pound cake recipes are prized possessions. Everyone has a favorite version, and many people aren’t always willing to share the details with others. For such a simple dessert—just flour, butter, sugar, and eggs—there are many ways of interpreting it, from adding cream cheese or a bit of bourbon to the batter, to spiking it with cocoa powder, to adding a ribbon of strawberry filling throughout. And that’s just for starters.

We all know that Ina Garten isn’t a Southerner, but she can bake with the best of them. (Although we may disagree about how much sugar she puts in her cornbread.) Her Perfect Pound Cake seems like something you’d find in any good bakery in the South. But once you give the recipe a closer look, you’ll find a few tweaks that only Ina would make. (Vanilla extract AND vanilla bean seeds? Ina, we love you, but come on.) Her recipes famously produce great results, but can her pound cake stand up to the scrutiny of Southern Living editors? Here’s what we really think.

What Ina Says About The Pound Cake

In her 2012 cookbook Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust, she writes: “I consider myself a pound cake aficionado. I love the simplicity of it: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. This recipe takes a bit of extra time to make because of the sifting, but it really does make the texture more delicate. Serve with tea in the afternoon or for dessert with some fresh berries and a dollop of creme fraîche.”

Our Pound Cake

There are lots of ways to riff on a pound cake recipe, and we’ve definitely tried them all. But since Ina’s recipe is relatively classic, we’re putting our simplest recipe up to the test: our Million Dollar Pound Cake. This rich and buttery cake has earned high praise from readers for decades. The ingredients are what you would expect: butter, sugar, eggs, all-purpose flour, and milk. We call for almond and vanilla extracts, which, when combined, add a little more fragrance and depth than vanilla alone. Made in a stand mixer, the batter comes together quickly, then is baked at 300°F for an hour and 40 minutes. The result: A tender, buttery crumb that's moist and slightly dense, a crisp, golden exterior, and a rich sweetness accented by almond and vanilla.

One reader commented: “I’ve been making this pound cake for years. It has never failed me, it is always a hit and can be changed up easily with a little imagination.” Another person wrote: “This recipe is worth a MILLION DOLLARS!!! I goofed up and it still came out beautifully and moist.”

Ina’s Pound Cake

You’ll find the usual ingredients in her recipe: flour (Ina specifies cake flour, not all-purpose), salt, butter, sugar, eggs, and some flavorings. That said, there are still a few fancy flourishes. (It wouldn’t be a Barefoot Contessa recipe without them!) One is demerara sugar, which she uses to coat the sides and bottom of the greased and floured pan. As the cake bakes, the sugar helps create a crackly crust. She calls for both vanilla extract and seeds from a vanilla bean pod (this recipe might predate the availability of vanilla bean paste, which is fairly easy to find today), and two teaspoons of fresh orange zest. Another key difference is that her recipe calls for heavy cream, while ours calls for milk. And she specifies sifting the cake flour THREE (yes, she uses all caps) times.

What Southern Living Tasters Said

The Southern Living staff was generally in agreement about this recipe, and had one overall suggestion:

"I haven't had pound cake in a long time, so I can't think of it comparatively, but I feel like this one is really dense. I like that it's not overly sweet or buttery and the hint of citrus is nice. This is a perfect one to serve with a strawberry compote or something that it would soak up nicely!"

“As I picked it up, I thought, ‘Oh no, it’s really firm. It will be dry.’ But it’s not. It’s moist and has an excellent flavor. This is a great cake if you want to grill it and top with warm fruit. It will hold its shape well.”

“It’s more firm than I imagine pound cake to be, and a bit denser. But it wasn’t dry, so I was okay with it. Not too sweet and has a good, but not overpowering, butter flavor.”

“Overall, a good cake, but I prefer my pound cake to be a little lighter with more of a sponge texture.”

“The sugar gave the exterior of the cake a nice crackly texture, especially along the edges. It was a bit dense, but very flavorful. It didn’t just taste like butter and sugar, like a lot of pound cakes do.”

"Overall, a good cake, but I prefer my pound cake to be a little lighter with more of a sponge texture."

Southern Living Editor

“I could taste the orange in there, which I liked, although that’s not a traditional pound cake flavor to me. The vanilla didn’t really come through as much.”

“I don’t think the extra sifting made a difference at all—the texture is still on the dense side.”

“Heavy and firm but still moist. It’s sweet without being overly so. Would need some ice cream or something with it to help with density.”

“Very firm and dense. May be good for holding up to toppings but not my favorite by itself.”

Final Thoughts

Is it truly “perfect”? No. But it’s a darn good pound cake. (If you add a topping or two...)

Related: 21 Essential Ina Garten Recipes Everyone Should Master

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