The Retro Cake Redditors Are Calling "Delicious" and "a Beauty"

I’ve always been a bit of an old soul. As a kid, I loved sifting through trunks of old clothes and photos in the attic, and my taste in movies and music has always skewed toward the classics. 

The same is true for my favorite recipes. The ones in the dog-eared, stained, spiral-bound cookbooks of my grandmother’s generation are some of my favorites. So when I noticed a retro recipe for cream cheese pound cake making the rounds on Reddit, I knew it was going to be good. I just wasn't prepared for exactly how good.

Reddit Won’t Shut Up About This Pound Cake 

Lucky for us, there’s a Reddit subthread for every niche interest, including retro recipes. r/Old_Recipes has 433,000 active, opinionated members, and many of them have shared their experiences with the now-viral cream cheese pound cake. 

In the original post, /u/_PopsicleFeet shared a handwritten recipe card with the deceptively simple recipe written on it, saying, “My aunt has been making this cake since I was a little girl. I am 37 for reference. I remember it being sold in a little gas station my grandmother owned in Marietta Ga. This has always been a family favorite and I finally got the recipe a few years ago. I don't live in Georgia anymore, but I love to make this cake because it tastes like home.” 

The recipe and story instantly struck a chord, and hundreds of users have posted their own experiences with photos of fails and triumphs along with memories of eating the cake as children. One of Reddit’s human angels transcribed a more comprehensive version of this recipe in the comments. It feels like an entire community has sprung up around this cake.

What’s So Special About Cream Cheese Pound Cake?

The Reddit bakers who love this cake rave about its fluffy, sweet interior, and they are borderline obsessed with the crunchy crust that forms on top, which becomes the bottom because the cake is inverted.

/u/LyingInPonds emphatically says, “The crusty bits are SO good. North Carolina, here, and people would beg my Mom to make them her cold oven pound cake.” It’s a sentiment that’s echoed over and over again."

Two main things make this recipe noteworthy. The first is right there in the name: cream cheese. In a typical pound cake recipe, you use a pound each of flour, sugar, and butter. Here, you swap out half of the butter for cream cheese, which gives the cake a velvety texture and slightly tighter crumb. But there’s another important trick that shouldn’t be overlooked: This cake starts baking in a cold oven.

If you’ve never baked a cold oven cake before, this will seem counterintuitive. When I was prepping this cake, I had to stop myself several times from turning on the oven to preheat. So essential is this step to the recipe that some versions of this cake are called “cold oven pound cake” or variations on that theme. 

According to Southern Living, “The trademark of a cold oven pound cake is a thick, golden-brown crust, with a flavor reminiscent of toasty caramel.” The cold oven approach also gives the leavening more time to act, which yields a tall and fluffy cake, making this as beautiful to look at as it is satisfying to eat.

How To Make Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Despite its notable tricks, this is, otherwise, a very straightforward cake recipe. You’ll begin by creaming butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer until fully combined. Next, add sugar and continue beating until the mixture is fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, waiting until each is incorporated before adding more. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix completely before adding the flour, and then turn to low speed and mix until the flour is just incorporated. Add a teaspoon of vanilla last, mixing in gently. 

Pour the batter into a greased pan, and tap it on the counter a few times to allow the batter to settle. The original post says to use a flat tube pan or bundt pan, but Reddit is brimming with bakers who have used all sorts of pans, including cupcake pans, which, according to one user, yields even more of that signature crusty top edge. 

Once the cake is in the oven, turn the oven on to 325°F, and set a timer for 90 minutes. Though the original post doesn’t include instructions for getting the cake out of the pan (arguably the most daunting step), users have chimed in: let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for about an hour before inverting. Allow to cool completely before serving, and store leftovers in the fridge for up to five days.