Get ready for a rich, tender Cherry Ricotta Pound Cake baked in a 9x5 loaf pan and topped with a Cherry Cream Cheese icing!
What is pound cake?
Traditionally, pound cakes were made using a pound of flour, a pound of butter, a pound of eggs, and a pound of sugar! They've been known for being quite rich and rather dense, and tend to be baked into a loaf pan as pictured above, or even into bundt cake molds.
Using Ricotta in a pound cake
Ricotta is a phenomenal ingredient when used for baking cakes. It can easily elevate the flavor and texture of a cake, while also acting as a neutral-tasting ingredient that doesn't overwhelm the flavor profile intended for the cake. In this case, the ricotta helps to allow our pound cake to remain tender and gives us an incredibly moist crumb.
How to prevent the cherries from sinking to the bottom of the cake
To prevent the roughly chopped and pitter cherries from sinking to the bottom of the pound cake, simply toss the cherries in a tablespoon of flour before incorporating them into the batter. The addition of flour helps inclusions of all kinds from sinking to the bottom of your cake when baking!
Our Key Ingredient - The Cherries
Sweet vs. sour cherries
There are so many different varieties of cherries! Sweet cherries have a tendency to grow on the West Coast and contain more sugar than sour/tart cherries. They also tend to be larger than tart cherries as well! Sour or tart cherries are more so sweet and slightly acidic, and smaller in size!
Buying Cherries
When shopping for your cherries you want to look for bright, shiny skins. Keep an eye out for the cherries that are slightly bruised or sunken and pass right on by. Having the stem intact on your cherry has nothing to do with whether the cherry is good or not, so don't worry about that when shopping!
Storing Cherries
Once I take my cherries home from the store, I put them straight in the fridge in an air-tight bag. Then, I give them a rinse before enjoying or prepping for a recipe such as our pound cake!
How to store pound cake
Freshly baked pound cake will last at room temperature for about 2-3 days! It will last for one full week if properly stored and wrapped in an air-tight container in the fridge.
Cherry Ricotta Pound Cake with Cream Cheese Icing
Equipment
- Bowl
- Whisk
- Stand or Electric Mixer
- Spatula
- 9x5 Loaf Pan
- Parchment Paper
- Cooling Rack
- Thermometer
Ingredients
Cherry Ricotta Pound Cake
- 1 ⅔ Cups (205 g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1 ⅔ Cup (370 g) Whole Milk Ricotta
- ¾ Cup (170 g) Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1 ½ Cups (300 g) Granulated Sugar
- 3 (150 g) Eggs, large
- 2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 tablespoon All-Purpose Flour , for tossing with cherries
- 1 Cup (140 g) Cherries , pitted & roughly chopped
Cherry Cream Cheese icing
- 3 tablespoon Cream Cheese , softened, ideally microwaved for 10 seconds for easy mixing
- 1 Tbsp Whole Milk
- 2 tablespoon Cherry Juice , from about 6 juiced cherries
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste , or vanilla extract
- 1 ½ Cup Powdered Sugar , Sifted
Instructions
Baking the Cherry Ricotta Pound Cake
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease your 9x5 loaf pan. Then, line your loaf pan with a long strip of parchment to make it easy to remove after baking.
- Add flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl bowl and whisk until all ingredients are combined. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the ricotta vigourosly until completely smooth - this should take about one full minute.
- Place the butter and sugar into the bowl of your mixer and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. Then, add the eggs one at a time stopping between each addition to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add the ricotta and mix until combined. Then add the dry ingredients and mix until everything looks homogenous.
- Toss roughly chopper and pitter cherries in 1 tablespoon of flour. This ensures that they don't sink to the bottom of the pound cake while baking. Finally, toss chopped cherries with the additional 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour, and fold in them gently into the batter.
- Scoop the mixture into your 9 x 5 greased loaf pan and smooth out the top with an offset spatula or a spoon. Then, bake until the center of your loaf reaches 200° F on your thermometer before removing from the oven. This should take about 60 to 70 minutes total. Unfortunately the toothpick test is not the best way to ensure that this pound cake is fully baked - checking for doneness with a thermometer will ensure you have a perfect bake!
- Allow your pound cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before removing and placing it on a cooling rack to cool completely.
Cherry Cream Cheese Icing
- Whisk the soft, microwaved cream cheese, cherry juice, milk and vanilla bean paste together until homogenous. At first, the mixture will have a difficult time coming together! Keep whisking vigorously until the mixture is smooth before moving on.
- Add sifted powdered sugar and whisk until smooth. If you would like to thicken your icing, add another few tablespoons of powdered sugar - alternatively, if you prefer an even thinner icing, you could add some additional cherry juice!
- Pour the cherry cream cheese icing on top of the pound cake and enjoy!
Jeanette
Can’t wait to try this!
Emily
So glad to hear - enjoy Jeanette!
Amy
This looks so good! Could I use frozen dark, sweet cherries, do you think? I have some in my freezer I need to use up.
Emily
Hi there, Amy! Great idea, you can certainly use your frozen cherries. I would recommend tossing the cherries in flour (as noted in step #6) while still frozen, then folding them into your batter before baking rather than allowing the cherries to thaw before adding. Enjoy!
Mattie Davis
Looks yummy ☺️
Y. Pizarro
I can not wait to try this recipe. The pound cake looks enticingly delicious. Thank you.
Regina
This recipe is super easy and cake is soooo good. It's hard to stop eating. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed this cake!
Emily
I'm so glad to hear you two enjoyed it, Regina! Thanks for sharing!!
Emmy
made this as written and loved it. Could I do this with figs or apples? Have you ever put it in muffin tins?
Emily
So glad to hear you loved it Emmy! You know, I'm actually in the midst of testing some additional pound cake options with a variety of berries and so far it's been working well! Sadly I haven't tested figs or apples yet not have I tested this pound cake in muffin tins.
Mark
Recipe was absolutely delicious. Let me add that I made some changes to address a slight shortage of ricotta (1/3 cup short). I replaced with 1/3 cup sour cream. I used frozen cherries. I took care to drain them over a bowl to reduce the water content and it turned out to be a good idea. I actually found the recipe searching for a way to use up my frozen cherries and ricotta. My oven runs a bit hot and the loaf started to brown in the 1st half hour so I lowered the temp (the fault of me not having an accurately calibrated oven). Just be aware that as the author said, this will take an hour at a min (took 70 min for me). Bottom line is this is a moist delicious pound cake. Don't even think of eating it without a big glass of milk or cup of coffee.