White Chocolate Pound Cake
We just love pound cake recipes, and this White Chocolate Pound Cake with it's light white chocolate flavor and white chocolate drip is sure to become an instant favorite!
This recipe is similar in some ways to our classic pound cake recipe, but with white chocolate added to the batter, cake flour, and heavy cream. The result is a sweet, ultra moist pound cake with a velvety soft texture.
The white chocolate flavor is subtle, with just the right amount of white chocolate flavor. The addition of a white chocolate drip (and optional white chocolate curls on top) gives this dessert a wonderful white chocolate boost as well.
Table of Contents
How to Make White Chocolate Pound Cake
You can find the full, printable recipe card for White Chocolate Pound Cake further down in this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour tube pan or 10 or 12 cup bundt pan.
- In a microwave safe bowl, pour heavy cream over 5 oz. white chocolate and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, then continue in smaller increments until the white chocolate is almost melted. Stir until smooth and completely melted and well combined.
- In a separate bowl whisk the dry ingredients: cake flour, salt, and baking powder for 30 seconds to combine, set aside for later.
- Cream the butter on medium speed with an electric mixer (use a paddle attachment if using a stand mixer). Add vanilla extract. Gradually add the sugar and beat until lightened in color and fluffy 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, waiting a few seconds after each addition until yolk has blended.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the white chocolate/cream mixture to the butter, sugar, egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. I add the dry ingredients 3 times and wet ingredients twice. Mix just until blended.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick or long skewer comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached
- Allow the white chocolate pound cake to cool in the bundt pan for about ten minutes before turning out.
Applying the Chocolate Drip
- Melt the white chocolate in the microwave in small increments until almost completely melted. Then stir gently to help the melting process along. Be careful not to overheat.
- The white chocolate drip will thicken is it cools. When it is a good consistency for dripping, you can spoon it over the pound cake if you'd like (as we did for the chocolate glaze on our Boston Cream Pie). However, we often scoop the glaze into a piping bag with the tip snipped away for a little more control.
(If you don't have a piping bag you can also use a ziplock bag with a small corner snipped away.)
Chocolate Curls
Chocolate curls are such an elegant way to dress up a cake! Here's a look as our process:
After the white chocolate pound cake had completely cooled, I created white chocolate curls from two squares of white chocolate. I used my vegetable peeler to do this, but you could also use a sharp knife.
Just run the knife or peeler along the edge of the chocolate to create curls. I do this over a bowl or sheet of wax paper.
Once you've made as many as you'd like, freeze them for about 5-10. minutes to firm them up before applying to the top of the cake. Chilling makes them less fragile.
**As you are creating your curls, if the chocolate splinters, it is likely too cool. You'll want to slightly warm the chocolate either with the heat from your hands or by placing in a sunny/warmer spot in your kitchen. (We have a great tutorial on Striped Chocolate Curls as well!)
Recipe FAQs
More Pound Cakes to Try!
We've made quite a few pound cakes over the years and we love them all! If you're looking for even more pound cakes to try, don't miss these delicious recipes! Some of our favorites are Lemon Pound Cake, Whipping Cream Pound Cake, and Marble Pound Cake.
Favorite White Chocolate Cakes
If you love white chocolate, we have more recipes for you to put on your list!
Our most popular is probably our White White Chocolate Velvet Cake, but there are so many delicious options!
White Chocolate Pound Cake
This delicious White Chocolate Pound Cake is super moist and has an amazing velvety texture.
Ingredients
- 3 sticks (339 g) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 ½ cups (500 g) sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups (342g) cake flour *see notes
- ½ teaspoon (2 g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g) salt
- 1 cup (242g) heavy cream or whipping cream (we used heavy cream) *see notes
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) vanilla
- 5 oz white chocolate (We used Ghirardelli white chocolate baking bars but we have also had success with Ghirardelli white chocolate chips)
White Chocolate Drip & Curls for Decoration
- We used 3.5 oz White Chocolate, melted for the drip (we used Ghirardelli baking bars for our drip)
- 1.5 oz white chocolate for curls (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour tube pan or 10 or 12 cup bundt pan.
- In a microwave safe bowl, pour heavy cream over 5 oz. white chocolate and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, then continue in smaller increments until the chocolate is almost melted. Stir until smooth and completely melted and well combined.
- In a separate bowl whisk the cake flour, salt, and baking powder for 30 seconds to combine, set aside for later.
- Cream the butter on medium speed with an electric mixer (use a paddle attachment if using a stand mixer). Add vanilla extract. Gradually add the sugar and beat until lightened in color and fluffy 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, waiting a few seconds after each addition until yolk has blended.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the white chocolate/cream mixture to the butter, sugar, egg mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. I add the dry ingredients 3 times and wet ingredients twice.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick or long skewer comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached
- This makes approximately 8 cups of batter.
- Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning out.
White Chocolate Drip
- Melt white chocolate (we used Ghirardelli white chocolate baking bar squares) in a microwave safe bowl in small increments (I started with 15 seconds and then adjusted to 10 second increments until almost melted. The chocolate pieces will not be fully melted but stir a minute or so to help the melting along. Be careful not to overheat.
- Once ready, you can spoon over the Room Temperature cake if you'd like, but I prefer to load the melted chocolate into a piping bag with the tip of the bag snipped away for a little more control.
White Chocolate Curls
- I used 3 of the baking squares to create white chocolate curls for the top of the cake. I used a potato peeler but you could also just use a sharp knife. run the knife along the edge of the room temperature chocolate to create curls.
- If the chocolate seems to splinter, it's a bit too cold and you can try warming it in your hands or a sunny spot in the kitchen. I create my curls over a bowl or sheet of wax paper, and then chill the curls in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes to firm it up before placing on the cake (so that the curls will be less fragile).
- I sprinkled and gently pressed the white chocolate curls into the freshly applied white chocolate glaze.
Notes
*We updated this recipe on 12/6/22. It used to call for all purpose flour rather than Cake Flour, and milk instead of heavy cream. While it was very good, the updated version is even more tender and velvety. We also increased the amount of white chocolate (from 3 oz to 5 oz)
*We used Ghirardelli baking bars for this recipe but I have also used Ghirardelli white chocolate chips with good results.
OMGoodness that looks delish! :-)
This caught my eye immediately because I have a bag of Nestle white chocolate chips I want to use up on something other than cookies. Then I saw you shaved the Ghiradelli. Do you think I could chop up the white chocolate chips and add to the cake batter, or would they not melt as well as the shavings? Just wondering if you tried them. Thanks so very much.
I've never seen Ghirardelli bars chips yes but not bars. I'm in western Canada. Where are they sold?
Hi Jody, The Ghirardelli White Chocolate baking bars are sold in most grocery stores as well as Target and Walmart. They will be found on the baking isle. Below is a link to Amazon so you can see a photo of it.
Hi Joan, We have not tried using white chocolate chips for this recipe so I'm not sure how well they would melt. You could try chopping them very small so they would not sink to the bottom of the pan. You could also melt 3 ounces (this is the weight of the shaved chocolate I folded in)of the white chocolate chips in the microwave at short intervals. Don't over microwave or the melted chocolate will firm up and be ruined. Before it has completely melted just stir a minute or so until it is completely melted.
Hi ladies-
Is it ok to put cake in fridge overnight before putting the icing on? If so, do I wrap it the same way as if Im freezing it and how long should I let it sit out before icing it?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Jackie, To keep your cake from drying out or absorbing odors in the refrigerator, I would double wrap it. The white chocolate pound cake would also be fine to sit out on the countertop, just put it under a cake cover.
Loved this cake. But, I admit I swapped out the melted white chocolate with white chocolate ganache.
Melissa and Bebe……I am planning to use this pound cake recipe and was wondering if it can be baked in regular cake pans as opposed to the Bundt pan?
If so, are the pans filled to the same level as regular cake recipes??
Hi Sharron, It can be baked in a regular pan but it can have a bit of a crusty top as pound cakes do. It is still fine because you can trim that off if you want. Fill the pans as your would other recipes about 2/3's full.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Hello, how are you? I would like to know if you can use cake flour for this recipe!?
Hi, I would love to make this white chocolate pound cake. I love your recipes and can’t wait to try this cake.
Hi Albertina, Yes, you can use cake flour. For each cup of AP flour in the recipe, use 1 cup cake flour plus 2 Tablespoons . For this recipe, you will use 3 cups cake flour (spooned into measuring cup and leveled off ) plus 6 Tablespoons cake flour. I hope you will enjoy the cake,
Are you going to ever do a baking cookbook bc your cakes and recipes are wonderful.
Thanks so much, LaShunda. Maybe one day! ;0)