Rich, decadent and dense, this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake is a welcome addition to any holiday dessert table. Each bite is perfectly moist and full of our favorite fall flavors. Plus, this pound cake features simple ingredients, and it’s easy to make for even the novice baker.

The buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake on a wooden cake stand with a pumpkin in the background and fall-themed napkin.

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Why You Need to Make This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
How to Serve
Perfect Pairing
Love Pumpkin Spice?
Buttermilk-Pumpkin Pound Cake

Why You Need to Make This Recipe

Everyone needs a delicious, reliable pound cake recipe in their back pocket. Luckily for us, this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake is happy to oblige, especially during the fall months when we can’t get enough pumpkin spice in our lives.

I just love how versatile a good pound cake is. We can serve it simply as cake, or we can cube it and use it in a holiday trifle. Or maybe we use this fall pound cake to make an out-of-this-world French toast or even a festive icebox cake.

See? So many options from one simple pound cake. You need this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake in your holiday recipe collection.

Bonus: Love this pumpkin pound cake? Try my carrot pound cake and banana pound cake as well!

An aerial view of the buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake with fall foliage.

Ingredients

Now let's organize our ingredients. Here's everything we need for our buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake.

Flour
Cinnamon
Ginger
Nutmeg
Cloves
Allspice
Salt
Dark brown sugar
White sugar
Softened butter
Eggs
Buttermilk
Pumpkin puree

You may notice I didn't list any leavening, such as baking soda or baking powder. That wasn't a mistake. Traditional pound cake doesn't use leavening. We will whip in plenty of air when making our batter, which will give this pound cake the lift it needs.

Looking down at the buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake with caramel running off it.

A close-up view of the buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake with the fall-themed napkin tucked in front.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Now to show you how truly simple this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake is. We start by combining our flour, spices and salt, and then we sift the mixture. To sift, you can use an actual sifter, a fine-mesh sieve or even a whisk. In case you've never sifted a flour mixture, here's a quick video that shows all three ways.

In a mixing bowl, we now cream together our butter, sugars and vanilla extract using a stand or hand mixer. Make sure the butter is softened before creaming. Softened butter is crucial to getting the proper texture.

We also want to make sure we take plenty of time to cream our butter and sugars. Expect to spend a full five minutes creaming our butter and sugars if using a stand mixer. You might want to add another minute or so if using a hand mixer. Our butter and sugars are properly creamed when they're light and fluffy like so.

Creaming the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

From here, we add our eggs one at a time. Once we incorporate our eggs, we add a scoop of our sifted flour and mix, and then we do the same with a splash of our buttermilk. We repeat the process until we mix in all the flour and buttermilk.

Now we add our pumpkin puree and take a few minutes to whip our batter. Again, we're not using leavening, so we want to make sure we incorporate plenty of air.

The batter of the buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake after it's been whipped.

At this point, we ready to bake. Before pouring the batter, make sure you generously grease the bundt pan and lightly flour it as well. When I didn't flour this pound cake, one of those little bumps had trouble coming out. Flouring made a world of difference.

The buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake batter poured into a bundt pan.

To bake our buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake, we put it into a 325-degree oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, we loosely tent our cake with tinfoil to ensure it doesn't excessively brown.

Now we allow our pound cake to cool and serve. Told you it's an easy recipe.

How to Serve

Sure, you could serve this pumpkin pound cake sliced and unadorned and still have one tasty dessert, but it's even better with a couple additions. First, we warm up the pound cake in the microwave along with my oh-so decadent bourbon caramel. We then top our warm, caramel-soaked buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake with a big scoop of ice cream.

I'm especially partial to my bourbon-pumpkin ice cream or butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans. You can't go wrong with either flavor. A caramel ice cream is another delicious option.

A slice of buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake on a wooden plate with the rest of the cake in the background.

A slice of buttermilk-pumpkin ice cream with a scoop of ice cream on top.

And, of course, you can use this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake in so many other recipes as I previously mentioned.

Perfect Pairing

Do yourself a favor and get a barrel-aged, dessert-like pumpkin ale. You can thank me later. Whether you pick a pumpkin ale aged in bourbon barrels or rum barrels, both boozy beers are delicious with this pound cake.

For wine, a tawny port is almost always my favorite pairing with pumpkin desserts, and this recipe is no exception. I just love how those dried fruit and caramel-like flavors of the tawny port play with the pumpkin spice. As far as I'm concerned, the two are the perfect match.

When you need the ultimate fall dessert, I hope you try this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake. This easy but delicious fall bundt cake always impresses, no matter the occasion. Please let me know how you enjoyed this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake recipe in the comment section and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter. You can also catch me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Cheers!

The buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake after it's been sliced.

Looking slightly down on the buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake with fall foliage around it.

Love Pumpkin Spice?

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