Amaretto Pound Cake Recipe
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Amaretto Pound Cake (with optional amaretto glaze) is a pound cake flavored with almond liqueur. Made from scratch, it’s rich, buttery, moist, and completely insanely delicious! This cake is perfect for any occasion and always gets rave reviews!
AMARETTO POUND CAKE
Amaretto is a sweet, almond-flavored Italian liqueur. It gives an Italian spin to this classic pound cake recipe.
If you grew up in the South, you grew up eating pound cake and biscuits! Everybody has a favorite Pound Cake recipe; most likely, it’s the one your Mother or Grandmother made. Well, not me, no, I don’t have a favorite Pound Cake recipe… I have many favorite Pound cake recipes!!!
Pound Cakes
Trust me, I’ve tried a lot of Pound Cake recipes! It’s my favorite thing ever to make!! Unfortunately, it’s surprising that I don’t have one on the blog yet (and I’ve been blogging for a year!)
So, What’s my excuse reason for baking you an Amaretto Pound Cake today? Glad you asked. Randomly, my friend sent me a dozen eggs that were already cracked! Twelve eggs in a bowl. I know, so random! People do random food stuff like this to me. Are you asking yourself why he wanted 12 egg shells? Yeah, I thought so! He needed the shells for calcium for his tomato plants! Did you know tomato plants need calcium, and apparently a lot of it, in the soil or the tomatoes will rot on the vines?
Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s an old wives tale, but he has 12 crushed eggshells around his tomato plants. We’ll see if it works! I’ll keep you posted.
Amaretto Pound Cake Mixing Method
- Coat a ten-inch
tube pan or bundt pan with solid vegetable shortening then either flour or sugar. I use granulated sugar because it doesn’t leave white areas on the cake. Alternatively, you can use Wilton Cake Release. - Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift the flour then measure it using the scoop and level method for measuring flour. Next,
sift the salt and baking powder together and add it to the flour mixture. - In the bowl of your electric mixer, mix the
butter , shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides. - Add eggs, one at a time, beating until the yellow disappears after each addition.
- Mix in Amaretto. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides with a spatula.
- Add the milk and flour mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Stop the mixture and scrape the sides. Give the mixer another whirl to combine everything.
- Pour batter into prepared
tube pan , leveling the top with a spatula. - Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes. (Start checking at 1 hour 15 minutes; your oven may be hotter than mine.) If your cake pan is dark, it may take less time, and if it is light, it may take more time. You’ll need to watch it closely and test it.
- Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes before inverting it on a platter. (Instructions for adding the glaze are below.)
Optional Amaretto Butter Glaze
This is an optional glaze that you can add to this bundt cake. You have two options for the glaze: You can poke tiny holes with a skewer while the cake is still in the pan, pour the glaze over the cake, and allow it to seep into the cake, then carefully remove the cake from the pan.
Another option is to remove the cake from the pan after 30 minutes and spoon the glaze over the pound cake, allowing it to seep into the cake.
- ยฝ cup granulated sugar
- ยผ cup salted
butter - 2 tablespoons Amaretto Liqueur
- 1 tablespoon water
TIPS AND MORE…
- Read the recipe through completely at least twice so you know what comes next.
- A stand mixer will make your life immensely easier. I canโt imagine all this mixing by hand or even with a hand mixer!
- You can use a bundt pan. I used this tube pan. A good rule of thumb when baking pound cakes is to always leave 2 inches from the batter to the top of the pan to allow for rising. Also, always place your baking pan on a cookie sheet to catch any overflows.
- Allow your eggs,
butter , and dairy to come to room temperature before mixing. - I always use salted real
butter in my pound cakes. Itโs a personal preference. You can use either salted or unsaltedbutter . - Use real
butter . No margarine! - I recommend calibrating your oven at least once a year. This post explains how to Calibrate your oven.
For all my pound cake baking tips and techniques, please read Bake the Perfect Pound Cake
Shop baking equipment needed at Walmart below. Click on the item to open the product.
While youโre here, check out these recipes
- Amaretto Peach Upside Down Pound Cake
- Coffee Cake Pound Cake
- Orange Creamsicle Pound Cake
- AMARETTO CREAM CHEESE COFFEE CAKE RECIPE
- CHOCOLATE AMARETTO POUND CAKE
- Amaretto Pineapple Upside Down Pound Cake
- BEST BANANA PUDDING POUND CAKE WITH AMARETTO LIQUEUR
- You can find more recipes at my Recipe Index
Amaretto Pound Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour measured correctly
- โ teaspoon salt
- ยฝ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup butter at room temperature
- ยฝ cup Crisco shortening
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 6 large eggs at room temperature
- โ cup Amaretto liqueur
- 1 cup whole milk at room temperature
Butter Glaze (optional)
- ยฝ cup granulated sugar
- ยผ cup salted butter
- 2 tablespoons Amaretto liqueur
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Coat aย ten-inch tube panย or bundt pan with solid vegetable shortening then either flour or sugar. I use granulated sugar because it doesn't leave white areas on the cake. Alternately, you can useย Wilton Cake Release.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift the flour then measure it using the scoop and level method for measuring flour. Next, sift the salt and baking powder together and add it to the flour mixture.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer, mix the butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating until the yellow disappears after each addition.
- Mix in Amaretto. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides with a spatula.
- Add the milk and flour mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Stop the mixture and scrape the sides. Give the mixer another whirl to combine everything.
- Pour batter into prepared tube pan, leveling the top with a spatula.
- Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes. (Start checking at 1 hour 15 minutes; your oven may be hotter than mine.) If your cake pan is dark, it may take less time, and if it is light, it may take more time. You’ll need to watch it closely and test it.
- Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes before inverting it on a platter. (Instructions for adding the glaze are below.)
Optional glaze
- Add the sugar, butter, and water to a small saucepan. Whisk it and bring it to a low boil and boil for 2 minutes or until the sugar is dissolved. Remove the mixture from the heat and add the amaretto. Whisk to combine. Slow pour over cake.
Nutrition
Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are important to you, I recommend calculating them yourself.
usHi Paula –
I appreciate your recipes! Is this amaretto pound cake crunchy/crusty on top?
Yes, it is.
OMG such a great cake!!! Super moist. I made NO substitutions (otherwise this wouldn’t be the same cake!). Definitely a keeper. Side note, this cake is wonderful even without the glaze so if you need to skip it, (I did not), it will be just fine. Thanks for the sharing! Also, I made two smaller pound cakes rather than one big one, and cooking in a convection oven they were done in about 35 minutes.
Thank you so much, Sharon!!!
Just made this cake for my son’s birthday. He turned 43 and always wants a pound cake. Even when he was a little boy. I usually make a traditional buttermilk pound cake but was wanting to try something different. THIS DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!!! Super moist. He and my daughter in law loved it. I didn’t even have time to put the glaze on because they were cutting in to it while it was still warm. Didn’t even need the glaze. Only sub I made was a tablespoon of high-quality amaretto in place of the butter extract. I have never used butter extract so didn’t have that on hand. This will be my new go to!!!
I am so happy you all liked it. This is truly one of my favorite pound cakes too. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
How can I substitute the shortening?
What are your other two favorite pound cakes?
Whipping Cream pound cake and cream cheese pound cake. Although, the mascarpone is up there close – it’s just more expensive to make with mascarpone.
I like the flavored pound cakes, but the old traditional ones take me back to my Mawmaw’s kitchen when I was little. I think they’ll always be my favorite.
Cooking time is too long. This only took about 1hr and 10 minutes and looks overdone at that. If I make again I will definitely bake less than the recommended time. Havenโt cut yet so canโt rate yet.
It was perfect in my oven. Dark pans, oven calibration, etc affect cooking times.