Easy Lighter Homemade Pound Cake from Scratch

WW Recipe of the Day: Yogurt Pound Cake Made Lighter

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 fresh fruit compote, fruit salsa or 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.

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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 3/4 cup plain yogurt for 1/2 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 1/4 cup milk) a little better.

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!

How Many Calories and WW Points in this Lighter Yogurt Pound Cake?

According to my calculations, each slice of cake has just 238 calories.

To see your WW Points for this recipe, track it in the WW App!
(You must be logged into WW on a smartphone or tablet.)

11 SmartPoints (Green plan)
10 SmartPoints (Blue plan)
10 SmartPoints (Purple plan)
6 PointsPlus (Old plan)

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.

Favorite Pound Cake 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 3/4 cup and add 1/4 cup honey. Omit mace and vanilla. Add 1/2 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.

3.58 from 42 votes

Lighter Yogurt Pound Cake Recipe

By Martha McKinnon | Simple Nourished Living

A lighter yogurt pound cake that replaces 1/2 the butter of your typical pound cake recipe with yogurt. Be sure that your butter and eggs are at room temperature before making this cake batter.

Prep: 30 minutes mins

Cook: 1 hour hr

Total: 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Servings: 12

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Equipment

• Mixing Bowls
• Hand Mixer
• Loaf Pan

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Ingredients 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1/2 cup butter, softened
• ▢ 1 cup sugar
• ▢ 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• ▢ 3/4 cup plain non-fat yogurt
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
• ▢ Pinch of ground mace** (optional)
• ▢ 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• ▢ 1/4 cup milk
• ▢ 3/4 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 1/3 of the flour. Then beat in half the milk mixture. Then 1/3 of the flour, half the milk and the remaining 1/3 flour – until everything is incorporated.
• Fill the pan about 5/6th 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.

Notes

Serving size: 1 slice (1/12 recipe)

WW Points: 12

Check your WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app.
(Must be logged into WW on a smartphone or tablet.)

11 SmartPoints (Green plan)

10 SmartPoints (Blue plan)

10 SmartPoints (Purple plan)

6 PointsPlus (Old plan)

**Mace, the outer covering of a nutmeg, is the traditional flavoring for pound cake. If don’t have it, so I used a little Penzeys baking spice

Favorite Pound Cake 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 3/4 cup and add 1/4 cup honey. Omit mace and vanilla. Add 1/2 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.

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice (1/12 recipe), Calories: 238kcal, Carbohydrates: 34.2g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 9.6g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 3g, Trans Fat: 0.3g, Cholesterol: 83mg, Sodium: 174mg, Potassium: 93mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 18g, Vitamin A: 336IU, Vitamin C: 0.1mg, Calcium: 66mg, Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Tried this recipe?Mention @simplenourishedliving or tag #simplenourishedliving!

If you like this enlightened pound cake recipe, check out these links:

• Canola Oil Pound Cake with Browned Butter Glaze (Culinary Institute of America)
• 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