Chocolate Pound Cake

by Jessica | February 9, 2026 5:25 pm

My aunt used to make chocolate pound cake every Easter. Not chocolate cake—chocolate pound cake. There’s a difference but I couldn’t tell you what it was when I was eight years old. I just knew hers was dense and rich and tasted better than anything that came from a box.

She’d cut these thick slices and we’d eat them plain. No frosting, no ice cream. Just cake. It was enough.

Took me years to figure out how to make it myself and even now mine doesn’t taste exactly like hers. Close though.

The Pound Cake Thing

So the name comes from the original recipe using a pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. One pound of everything. Easy to remember back when most people couldn’t read and recipes got passed around by word of mouth.

First written recipe showed up in England in 1747 in some cookbook by Hannah somebody. Then it made its way to America and by the 1800s everybody in the South was making it. Became a thing at church picnics and family dinners.

The original version would’ve been huge. Four pounds of ingredients makes a lot of cake. Enough to feed multiple families. People started cutting the recipe down but kept the same ratios and the name stuck.

Nobody uses exactly a pound of everything anymore but the basic idea’s the same. Equal parts of the main ingredients, dense texture, no leavening except air whipped into the batter. Or these days people add baking powder to make it lighter but then is it really pound cake? I don’t know. Debates about this stuff get weird.

 

Adding Chocolate

Regular pound cake is butter and sugar and eggs and flour. Adding chocolate changes things because cocoa powder’s dry and you have to adjust for that or the cake comes out like a brick.

Some people replace part of the flour with cocoa powder. Some add melted chocolate and reduce the butter. I do both because that’s what works and I stopped caring about doing it the “right” way a long time ago.

The chocolate version’s richer than plain pound cake. More intense. You can’t eat as much of it in one sitting which is probably for the best.

How I Make It

Room temperature everything. This matters more for pound cake than regular cake. Cold butter won’t cream right, cold eggs won’t incorporate, the whole thing’ll be lumpy and dense in a bad way instead of dense in a good way.

Beat the butter til it’s fluffy. This takes longer than you think. Three or four minutes at least. It should look pale and light.

Add sugar gradually while you’re beating. Don’t dump it all in at once. The sugar cuts into the butter and creates air pockets and that’s what makes the cake rise since there’s barely any leavening happening.

Add eggs one at a time. Beat each one in completely before adding the next. If you dump them all in together the batter might split and then you’re screwed.

Mix your dry stuff separately—flour, cocoa powder, little bit of baking powder, salt. Some people sift it. I usually don’t unless I remember.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in thirds, alternating with milk or buttermilk. Start and end with dry. Mix just til combined, don’t overbeat it or the cake gets tough.

Melt some chocolate and fold that in at the end. Dark chocolate works best. Milk chocolate makes it too sweet.

The whole process takes maybe fifteen minutes if you’re paying attention.

Baking

Grease your pan really well. Butter and flour it or use that spray stuff with flour already in it. Pound cake sticks like crazy if you don’t prep the pan right.

I use a bundt pan usually. Loaf pans work too but take longer to bake.

Pour the batter in. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to get air bubbles out.

Bake at 325. Lower temperature than regular cake because pound cake’s so dense it needs time to cook through without burning the outside.

It’ll take an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen. Don’t open the oven door for at least the first 45 minutes or it might sink in the middle. After that you can check it with a toothpick. Should come out clean or with just a few crumbs.

Let it cool in the pan for maybe twenty minutes before you turn it out. If you try to take it out too soon it’ll fall apart. If you leave it too long it’ll stick.

What Not to Do

Don’t use cold ingredients. Already said this but it’s important.

Don’t skip the creaming step. Some people think they can just throw everything in a bowl and mix it. You can’t. Well you can but it won’t be pound cake, it’ll be some other kind of cake.

Don’t overbake it. Pound cake should be moist. People think dense means dry but it doesn’t. If your pound cake’s dry you either overbaked it or didn’t use enough fat.

Don’t add too much cocoa powder thinking more chocolate equals better. Too much and the cake gets bitter and crumbly.

Serving

Slice it thick. Thin slices fall apart.

You can eat it plain. You can dust it with powdered sugar. You can glaze it with chocolate ganache if you’re feeling fancy.

Some people serve it with whipped cream or ice cream. My aunt never did. She said it didn’t need it.

Keeps for about a week wrapped in plastic wrap. Gets better after a day or two actually. Something about the flavors settling or whatever.

You can freeze it too. Wrap it tight, freeze it for up to three months. Thaw it on the counter still wrapped so condensation doesn’t make it soggy.

 

Why This Works

Chocolate pound cake is one of those things that seems intimidating but it’s not really. It’s just butter and sugar and eggs and flour and chocolate. Same ingredients as regular cake, different technique.

The technique’s the important part. The beating, the order you add things, the temperature. Get that right and the cake works. Skip steps and it doesn’t.

My aunt learned from her mother who learned from her mother. Nobody wrote anything down, they just watched and helped and figured it out. By the time it got to me the recipe existed on a stained index card in handwriting I could barely read.

I’ve tweaked it over the years. Added vanilla. Used buttermilk instead of regular milk. Changed the type of chocolate. But the basic structure’s the same as whatever my great-grandmother was making in the 1940s.

Some recipes are worth keeping around.

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Ingredients

• 1½ cups butter (3 sticks), room temperature
• 3 cups sugar
• 5 eggs, room temperature
• 3 cups flour
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk (or whole milk)
• 4 ounces dark chocolate, melted and cooled
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

 

How To

1. Get everything to room temperature first. This is important.
2. Beat the butter on high til it’s fluffy and pale. 3-4 minutes at least.
3. Add sugar gradually while beating. Keep going til it’s light and creamy.
4. Add eggs one at a time. Beat each one in completely before adding the next.
5. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in another bowl.
6. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with buttermilk. Start with dry, end with dry. Mix just til combined.
7. Fold in melted chocolate and vanilla.
8. Grease and flour a bundt pan or two loaf pans really well.
9. Pour batter in, tap pan on counter to remove air bubbles.
10. Bake at 325 for 60-75 minutes. Don’t open the oven before 45 minutes.
11. Cake’s done when a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs.
12. Cool in pan for 20 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

 

Equipment

Bundt pan or 2 loaf pans. Electric mixer makes life easier but you could do it by hand if you’re patient.

Storage

Wrap tight in plastic wrap. Counter for a week, freezer for three months.

Gets better after a day. Don’t ask me why, it just does.

Source URL: https://ladysuniverse.com/chocolate-pound-cake/

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