WW Recipe of the Day: Lighter Yogurt Pound Cake
I can be a real recipe geek, as this pound cake experience clearly illustrates.
It all started with wanting to make a lighter homemade poundcake from scratch. A typical slice of pound cake can have upwards of 400 to 500 calories, not something I can afford to indulge in very often.
Yet, it's something I like, probably because it's so simple and versatile. Great plain, pound cake also is delicious with fruit compote, fruit salad, yogurt, and ice cream.
Suddenly it dawned on me that I'd never even made a regular pound cake from scratch, let alone a lighter one. How could I go about attempting to lighten a pound cake recipe without having made a standard one? (Yes, this is how my geeky recipe brain operates. Or was this just an excuse to dig out lots of butter and sugar? I'm really not sure.)
I decided my Mom's birthday was the perfect excuse reason to make her a full fat pound cake that I could then experiment with making lighter later. My pound cake mission had begun.
In Search of Lighter Pound Cake
I searched through lots and lots of cookbooks to decide on a recipe, and learned in the process, that most pound cakes use the same basic ingredients - butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and sometimes milk - but the recipes can vary considerably in the amount of sugar and number of eggs used. Other popular pound cake ingredients include cream cheese and sour cream.
Since I couldn't seem to choose just one, I decided to make 2 recipes: The Barefoot Contessa's Honey Vanilla Pound Cake, which appears in her Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics: Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients (affiliate link) and the Easy Pound Cake from How to Bake: Complete Guide to Perfect Cakes, Cookies, Pies, Tarts, Breads, Pizzas, Muffins, Sweet and Savory (affiliate link) by Nick Malgieri.
I discounted the pound cake recipe that appears in How to Cook Everything, Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food (affiliate link) by Mark Bittman because it's technique was more involved, requiring that you separate the eggs, whip the whites and then fold them back into the batter. (Even though this is the technique Smitten Kitten swears by and attributes to James Beard here in her post for lighter airy pound cake, it seemed like too much work. I wanted "easy." I definitely need to work on my aversion to whipping and folding egg whites.)
While I didn't select the Bittman pound cake recipe, he did provide a great suggestion for lightening it: substitute ¾ cup plain yogurt for ½ cup of butter.
By the time I was done investigating and ready to get baking, it was quite late. I pulled out the butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, honey, and vanilla and plugged in the KitchenAid (affiliate link). (Rod and Mac quietly exited upstairs to the man cave before the flour began to fly.)
Each of the batters looked, smelled, and tasted delicious.
What I did next, turned out to be a big baking mistake learning opportunity. I used foil pans and filled them too full.
After 30 minutes of baking, I looked in the oven to discover batter bubbling and oozing from the pans onto the baking sheet (affiliate link) beneath them. I wanted to cry or scream.
And the old perfectionist me would have pulled them from the oven, dumped them into the trash, and started over again.
I took a big breath, sighed, closed the oven and decided to let them bake and see how they turned out, knowing they would be far from perfect.
And having just cleaned up the kitchen, I dug out the ingredients, revved up the KitchenAid and mixed together another one to bake in a sturdier pan. This was my Mom's birthday after all.
Note to self: Get yourself some sturdier regular sized loaf pans and DO NOT overfill them!
The Results
While the cakes that had overrun were not picture perfect, they tasted pretty darned good. In our side-by-side tasting, Mom and I both preferred the texture of the Easy Pound Cake (which called for ¼ cup milk) a little better.
Pound Cake Experiments - What Happens When Your Pan Overflows!
A few days later, I finally baked my lighter pound cake, which I liked best of all, since it was easy, delicious and a little lighter and healthier!
Lighter Healthier Pound Cake
How Many Calories and WW Points in this Lighter Yogurt Pound Cake?
According to my calculations, each serving has 238 calories and:
11 *SmartPoints (Green plan)
10 *SmartPoints (Blue plan)
10 *SmartPoints (Purple plan)
6 *PointsPlus (Old plan)
To see your WW PersonalPoints for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, Click here!
Recipe Notes:
**Mace, the outer covering of a nutmeg, is the traditional flavoring for pound cake. I didn't have any, so I used a little Penzeys baking spice instead.
Variations:
- Orange Pound Cake: Omit the mace. Add the zest of one medium naval orange and substitute orange extract for the vanilla.
- Lemon Pound Cake: Omit the mace. Add the zest of one lemon and substitute 2 teaspoons lemon extract for the vanilla.
- Honey Spice Pound Cake: Decrease sugar to ¾ cup and add ¼ cup honey. Omit mace and vanilla. Add ½ teaspoon each ground cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
- Ginger Pound Cake: Substitute 2 teaspoons ground ginger for the spices in the Honey spice Pound Cake variation.
- Honey Vanilla Pound Cake: Add 2 tablespoons honey and 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest.
- Polenta Pound Cake: Substitute 1 cup polenta for 1 cup flour
- Nut Pound Cake: Substitute 1 cup nut meal or flour for 1 cup of flour and use 1 cup all purpose flour for the remaining cup.
If you've made this lighter yogurt pound cake, please give the recipe a star rating below and leave a comment letting me know how you liked it. And stay in touch on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the latest updates.
Lighter Yogurt Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- ¾ cup plain non-fat yogurt
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Pinch of ground mace** (optional)
- 1-½ teaspoons vanilla
- ¼ cup milk
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups cake flour
Instructions
- Grease an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan (affiliate link). Line the bottom of the pan with parchment or wax paper, so the pound cake doesn't stick to the bottom when you try to remove it.
- Position an oven rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 325F degrees.
- In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer (affiliate link) until soft and light. Beat in 3 of the eggs, one at a time, letting each one get incorporated before adding the next.
- Beat in the yogurt until well blended.
- Beat in the salt, mace (if using) and vanilla extract.
- In a separate small bowl (affiliate link), combine the remaining egg, with the milk.
- In third bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder and sift once. (I just shake it through a strainer (affiliate link).)
- Beat in ⅓ of the flour. Then beat in half the milk mixture. Then ⅓ of the flour, half the milk and the remaining ⅓ flour - until everything is incorporated.
- Fill the pan about ⅚th full. Bake the pound cake at 325 degrees for about 1 hour or until it is well risen and colored, cracked on the surface, and a thin knife inserted in the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool in the pan.
- Once completely cool, gently run a sharp knife along the sides of the pan, carefully remove the cake from the pan and remove the paper.
- Wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap and store at a cool room temperature in the refrigerator. If refrigerated, bring to room temperature before serving.
- It's really important that your butter and eggs are at room temperature or the butter may separate while you are mixing giving the cake a rough, irregular texture, instead of a smooth, tender one.
Recipe Notes
- Orange Pound Cake: Omit the mace. Add the zest of one medium naval orange and substitute orange extract for the vanilla.
- Lemon Pound Cake: Omit the mace. Add the zest of one lemon and substitute 2 teaspoons lemon extract for the vanilla.
- Honey Spice Pound Cake: Decrease sugar to ¾ cup and add ¼ cup honey. Omit mace and vanilla. Add ½ teaspoon each ground cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
- Ginger Pound Cake: Substitute 2 teaspoons ground ginger for the spices in the Honey spice Pound Cake variation.
- Honey Vanilla Pound Cake: Add 2 tablespoons honey and 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest.
- Polenta Pound Cake: Substitute 1 cup polenta for 1 cup flour
- Nut Pound Cake: Substitute 1 cup nut meal or flour for 1 cup of flour and use 1 cup all purpose flour for the remaining cup.
*Points® calculated by WW. *PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® calculated by Simple Nourished Living; Not endorsed by Weight Watchers International, Inc. All recipe ingredients except optional items included in determining nutritional estimates. SmartPoints® values calculated WITHOUT each plan's ZeroPoint Foods (Green plan, Blue plan, Purple plan) using the WW Recipe Builder.
If you like this enlightened pound cake recipe, check out these links:
- Canola Oil Pound Cake with Browned Butter Glaze (Cooking Light/My Recipes)
- Lighter Than Normal Lemon Pound Cake (Kate in the Kitchen)
- Weight Watchers Vanilla Pound Cake
- My Skinny Low Fat Chocolate Cake Recipes
- My Skinny Low Fat Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake
- My Healthy Low Fat Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting
Martha is the founder and main content writer for Simple-Nourished-Living.
A longtime lifetime WW at goal, she is committed to balancing her love of food and desire to stay slim while savoring life and helping others do the same.
She is the author of the Smart Start 28-Day Weight Loss Challenge.
A huge fan of the slow cooker and confessed cookbook addict, when she's not experimenting in the kitchen, you're likely to find Martha on her yoga mat.
This post contains affiliate links to products I like. When you buy something through one of my Amazon links or other (affiliate links), I receive a small commission that helps support this site. Thank you for your purchase!
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Alyssa (Everyday Maven)
Looks great! I just adapted a biscotti recipe from that Nick Malgieri book. I love that book 🙂
Carey
Just made this and it was very good. Drizzled an icing of powdered sugar and lemon juice over the slices... Mmm. Served it with tea to a friend who remarked that it didn't taste diet at all. My toddlers enjoyed it, too. Thanks for the lovely recipe.
Martha
Glad you liked it Carey! The addition of your lemon/powdered sugar icing sounds delectable 🙂
Nabila
This looks delicious! I was wondering, if I wanted to bake this in cupcake form and insert a strawberry into each cup of batter (to make a sort of denser strawberry shortcake cupcake, if you will - and then top with some whipped cream) do you have any idea how long I would have to bake the cupcakes? Thanks so much for the recipe - I love pound cake but wanted something healthier, and this looks perfect! 🙂
Martha McKinnon
Hi Nabila,
I've never baked pound cake as cupcakes, so I'm only guessing, but I would think at least 30 minutes. You might want to begin checking at 20 minutes, so you don't over bake them. I've also never tried placing a whole strawberry in the middle of the cupcake. Have you? I'm thinking the berry would let off a lot of liquid that might cause the cupcake to be really mushy. Would love to hear how your baking experiments turn out!
Warmly,
Martha
Dannette Everett Coleman
sent me this pound cake ,, and yeast roll ,and cinnmon roll resipiest.
Mark
I'm going to try this recipe using liquid egg product, low-fat butter, skim milk, and non-fat plain yogurt. I think that might bring the fat and the calorie count down farther.
Also, I use anise extract in lieu of vanilla - I call this my Italian-style pound cake. Served with Spumoni on top and a drizzle of red wine.
Martha McKinnon
Hi Mark, Your changes sound good. Love the idea of anise instead of vanilla for an Italian-style poundcake. And serving it topped with spumoni and a drizzle of red wine is totally inspired!! Must remember this the next time I'm wanting an Italian style dessert. Thanks so much for taking the time to share.
anne
I've been looking for a lighter version pound cake recipe as my mom and sis love them. However, due to their health issues, I've refrained from baking one their favourites. Now that I find your recipe, I'm happy because I think I can bake a lighter pound cake. Thank you for the recipe.
Martha McKinnon
Hi Anne, Thanks for taking the time to comment. I hope it works for you. We all loved it 🙂
Lauren
Making this right now and am so, so excited! Should be done by the time dinner is over. It looks like it is raising perfectly in the oven. Will be enjoying with homemade whipped cream and pineapple/raspberries tonight 😀 thanks for the great recipe! Sharing to Pinterest.
Martha McKinnon
Hi Lauren, Thanks for sharing!!
Rs
How can I make it pineapple flavored? I want to make it Using fresh pineapple chunks or crushed pineapple, how much should I use and what should I omit from the recipe?
Martha McKinnon
Hi Rs, I've never tried to make pineapple flavored pound cake so this is only a guess... I'd leave out the milk and add 1/2 - 3/4 cup well drained crushed pineapple. Hope this helps.
Jacqueline
Can you use all purpose flour instead of cake flour for this? Will there be a textural difference that is noticeable? I can go and buy some cake flour but want this NOW......LOL....and only have ap flour!
Martha McKinnon
Hi Jacqueline, I haven't made it with all purpose flour. I suspect it might make it a little heavier. If you use it instead, maybe use just 1-3/4 cups instead of 2. Hope this helps.
ria
hi i love the less butter concept.....
I m going to try to bake the cake
thank-you so much.
Hebe B
Where do you buy cake flour? I have not heard of it before.
Martha McKinnon
Hi Hebe, You should find it in any larger grocery store stocked with the baking supplies/flours. It usually comes in a box softassilk and swan's down are two popular brands. Hope this helps.
Vickie Gorham
Can Splenda and 1% milk be used in this receipt
Martha McKinnon
Hi Vickie, I haven't tried it so I don't really know. If you experiment, please let us know how it turns out. - Martha
Elayssa
You might want to consider changing your recipe to say:
“1/2 cup ( 1 stick) of butter” so that it doesn’t confuse anyone who might think you mean 1/2 cup of butter AND a stick of butter combined. Just a thought!
ann
I know this is an old post, but I just made this, substituting blended cottage cheese for both the milk and yogurt. I was amazing! Not terribly sweet, but still cake and just the right texture!!! Thank you so much!