Yogurt Pound Cake

This simple pound cake recipe is moist, lightly sweet & nicely spiced. It's a divine afternoon treat, especially with dollops of yogurt & in-season fruit.

Pound Cake Recipe

I hope you’re all having a great weekend! Ours has been pretty chill – we went to the farmers market, Jack played video games, and I did some baking. I’m excited to share this lovely little pound cake recipe with you because I think it’s the perfect Sunday afternoon treat. It’s lightly sweet and nicely spiced. Yogurt makes it tangy while giving it a nice puffed up look. It’s moist with that perfect cake-y crumb that you want in a quick bread.

My Pound Cake Recipe

To be fair, I’m stretching the term “pound cake” a little here. It’s traditionally made with a pound each of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, and this one certainly isn’t. I swap olive oil for the butter, go easy on the sugar, and use a mix of almond flour and all-purpose flour to get that signature moist, dense pound cake texture. Nowadays, you’ll see a lot of recipes for sour cream or cream cheese pound cake, but I use yogurt here. It adds the same delicious tangy flavor that sour cream or cream cheese would, but it’s healthier, and it’s what I keep on hand.

I finish this easy pound cake recipe with a dash of warming spices – nutmeg, cardamom, and cinnamon – lemon zest, and vanilla extract to give it a bright, spiced flavor.

Easy Pound Cake recipe

Easy Pound Cake Serving Suggestions

As I said above, I love to enjoy a slice of this pound cake as an afternoon treat with tea or coffee. It would also be a welcome addition to a brunch spread with a frittata, French toast, pancakes, breakfast casserole, or baked oatmeal. And of course, it’s a great choice for dessert.

No matter what, serve this easy pound cake with dollops of yogurt and seasonal fresh fruit. Or, for a more decadent treat, swap the yogurt for coconut whipped cream.

More Favorite Cakes and Quick Breads

If you love this pound cake recipe, try one of these cakes or quick breads next:


4.9 from 11 reviews

Yogurt Pound Cake

 
Prep time
Cook time
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This moist, light yogurt pound cake recipe is a divine afternoon treat or summer dessert. Serve it with dollops of yogurt and your favorite seasonal fresh fruit.
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert, snack
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup almond flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon cardamom
  • ½ teaspoon nutmeg
  • ¾ teaspoon sea salt
  • ½ cup cane sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  • ¾ cup Stonyfield Organic Plain Whole Milk Yogurt, more for serving
  • ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • fresh fruit, for serving
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray an 8x4-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, almond flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and salt.
  3. In another large bowl, whisk together the cane sugar and lemon zest. Then add the yogurt, olive oil, eggs, and vanilla and whisk to combine.
  4. Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Don’t overmix.
  5. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake 40 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  6. Serve with dollops of yogurt and fresh fruit.
Notes
This freezes well! I like to slice it before freezing so that I can have individual servings throughout the week,

This post is in partnership with Stonyfield Organic and Blue Apron. All thoughts, photos, and experiences are my own!

31 comments

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Rate this recipe (after making it):  

  1. crystal
    12.23.2023

    Mine is in the oven! I’m a ditz and forgot to add baking powder so I had to mix it in 10 minutes after it started baking, oops lol. I also only did 1/4 cp sugar and added chia seeds as well as measured the vanilla with my heart! It is already smelling delicious. I will update after we eat it!

  2. Sara
    01.30.2022

    This recipe is fantastic! It is indeed a wonderful breakfast or afternoon pick-me-up. It came out delicious despite my several edits: I used Greek yogurt instead of regular, lemon juice instead of zest, and AP flour instead of almond because those are the things I had in my pantry! I also added a glaze made of lemon juice and powdered sugar, which added a nice fresh contrast to the very subtle sweetness of the loaf. So rest assured that even if you have to make lots of edits, this will still be a lovely, light, nicely spiced and satisfying cake 🙂

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      02.01.2022

      I’m so glad you loved it!

  3. Katie
    03.08.2021

    I just made this bread today and it was very good! I enjoy that it is less sweet than I what I normally bake (and eat!). I actually used 1/4 cup of monk fruit sugar and 1/4 cup of granulated because I didn’t have cane sugar on hand. I also used chobani complete vanilla Greek yogurt with no added sugar. It still came out with a light texture and good crumb! Just like the photos. Yum! Thank you for the recipe.

  4. Christy Soulian
    01.01.2021

    Made this today as a light dessert after the rich holiday food, I used orange in place of the lemons, very good!

  5. Preston
    11.14.2020

    I made this and made some edits, came out delicious!
    1) soy based yogurt, it’s what I had
    2) no lemons so no lemon zest, a missed opportunity here
    3) no almond flour, all purpose all the way
    4) grape nuts on top! Adds mega crunch highly recommend it. (Next time I’ll do brown sugar and grape nuts)

  6. Emma
    12.19.2019

    This is a great recipe – made with a few edits. Use orange zest instead of lemon zest and thinned out some greek yogurt with some fresh squeezed orange juice to use in place of the Stonyfield yogurt. Also added a nice orange glaze. Super delicious.

  7. satpreet from satpreetkahlon.com
    04.27.2019

    i took a risk and made this recipe gluten free just by subbing the all-purpose flour for 1/2 cup fine grain brown rice flour and 1/2 cup sweet sorghum flour, and it worked beautifully! everyone at the barbecue loved it.

    thank you for another great recipe. <3

  8. Hailey
    11.23.2018

    I have a family member with an egg allergy. I know you can sometimes substitute eggs, bananas or vinegar. Do you have any thoughts on modifying this recipe to accommodate his allergy?

  9. Jen from workouteatin.blogspot.com
    08.13.2018

    This recipe sounds delicious! I normally only have greek-style yogurt on hand – if I used that, should I thin it out slightly with milk? Thank you!

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      08.15.2018

      Hi Jen, yes, the plain Stonyfield yogurt is a lot thinner than greek yogurt. Thinning it out a bit should work, I can’t see why not(?), but I also haven’t tried it to know a specific ratio. Hope that helps, let me know how it goes?

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      07.25.2018

      Hi Soma, I’m glad you liked the cake! You can reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon if you like.

      • Soma
        07.29.2018

        Thank you for your reply, I will try that.

  10. Stephanie
    07.19.2018

    Hi, I really want to make this, I like how simple it is. But my husband has a nut allergy. Is there anything I could use in place of almond flour?

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      07.19.2018

      Hi Stephanie, oh no, the almond flour is so delicious 🙂 I haven’t tried with another type of flour so I can’t really say for sure but I think just more AP or whole wheat pastry flour might work.

  11. Bree from BreeWell.com
    07.17.2018

    Making this today! Is it necessary to add the almond flour?

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      07.17.2018

      it is! The cake would be more dry if you used another type of flour in it’s place. It’s delicious!

      • Bree
        07.17.2018

        Thank you! Will go buy some Bob’s red mill 🙂 Love all your recipes!

        • Jeanine Donofrio
          07.18.2018

          thank you! I love almond flour, I think you’ll get good use of it :). Hope you like the cake!

  12. Gaby Dalkin
    07.17.2018

    Nothing better than a cherry dessert in the summer!

  13. Natalie from lilcookie.com
    07.16.2018

    I just love your photographs! So beautiful. Looks absolutely delicious and I love the combination of cardamom and yogurt. YUM!

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      07.18.2018

      thank you! The spices are so yummy together 🙂

  14. stephanie comstock
    07.15.2018

    Do you think this recipe would work using coconut milk yogurt?

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      07.15.2018

      I haven’t tried it so I’m not sure! I think it might just not rise quite as much.

  15. Gail
    07.15.2018

    I am inclined to call his breakfast! : )

    • Gail
      07.15.2018

      this, not his (sorry)

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      07.15.2018

      Ha, I ate a slice for breakfast every day last week 🙂

  16. This tea cake is so lovely and I really appreciate hearing more about it’s inspiration. 😉

A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.