Buttermilk-Pumpkin Pound Cake

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

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Your go-to fall dessert: Everyone needs a tasty, 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. This cake is perfect for every fall occasion.

So many versatile serving options: 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. With so many serving ideas, you need this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake in your holiday recipe collection.

Easily serves a crowd: We make this bundt style, which means we get a lot of cake from just one batch. When the whole family is coming over for the holidays, this pumpkin cake will keep everyone full and happy.

Ingredients

Now let's organize our ingredients. Here are a few notes to ensure you make the perfect fall cake.

Flour: Please note that this recipe was specifically tested with all-purpose flour.

Leavening: For this, we use a combination of baking soda and baking powder. Make sure you double check the expiration date for both. Expired leavening will not rise the cake.

Pumpkin purée: Make sure you get pure pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling. They’re two very different products and are not interchangeable. I opt for canned pumpkin, but you're more than welcome to roast your own pumpkin purée.

Buttermilk: This gives us a nice moisture boost and a little zip to balance those warm spices. 

Butter: We use salted butter rather than unsalted butter.

Dark brown sugar: I like to use dark brown sugar over light brown sugar because of the higher molasses content for a richer flavor. That said, you can substitute light brown sugar if need be.

Spices: These warm fall spices include a mixture of ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. Alternatively, you could substitute 2 ½ tablespoons pumpkin pie spice for the individual ingredients if that’s what you have on hand.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Now to show you how truly simple this buttermilk-pumpkin pound cake is.

Step 1: We start by combining the dry ingredients, including our flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt in a medium bowl, and then we sift the mixture (photo 1). 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, check out the video in the recipe card that shows how I like to use a fine-mesh sieve for sifting.

Step 2: In a large bowl, we now cream butter, sugars and vanilla extract using a hand mixer or stand mixer with the paddle attachment on medium-high speed (photo 2). Expect to spend about four to five minutes creaming the butter and sugars. Our butter and sugars are properly creamed when they're light and fluffy like so.

Step 3: From here, we beat in our large eggs at medium speed one at a time (photo 3). This makes for a more stable emulsion as opposed to adding the eggs all at once, so don’t skip this process, thinking it doesn’t matter. 

Step 4: Once we incorporate our eggs, we add a scoop of our sifted flour to the wet ingredients and mix, and then we do the same with a splash of our buttermilk (photos 4 and 5). We repeat the process until we mix in all the flour and buttermilk.

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Step 5: Now we stir in our pumpkin purée (photo 6). And just like that, the cake batter is ready.

Step 6: At this point, we generously grease the bundt cake pan with cooking spray, lightly flour it and pour the batter into the prepared pan (photos 7 and 8). If we don’t flour the pan, the cake may stick during the removal process. Flouring makes a world of difference.

Step 7: All that’s left is to bake the pumpkin pound cake in a 350-degree F oven for about 55-60 minutes until it's completely cooked in the middle. We then remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool (photo 9).

How to Serve

Sure, you could serve this pumpkin pound cake sliced and unadorned or with a simple powdered sugar topping 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 moist 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.

You might also love topping this pumpkin spice bundt cake with a tangy cream cheese frosting or brown sugar glaze. Feel free to get creative here. No matter how you serve it, you have the perfect fall dessert.

Recipe FAQs

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.

This cake also makes a lovely brunch dessert. For that occasion, serve it with my pumpkin chai latte, and you're in for a real treat. Or you could go with a nice dessert cocktail if this is the end of your Thanksgiving dinner. In that case, you'll love it with my maple bourbon sour.