I originally published this recipe in 2008 and updated the post in 2019. I hope you enjoy it!
Grandmama’s Chocolate Pound Cake with Fudge Glaze
I have received a lot of requests for recipes in the past, but this is the one cake that I am asked to make most often. Its just a good old fashioned chocolate pound cake recipe from my Grandmama that is sublime on its own, but when you add Grandmama’s fudge icing, it becomes a favorite to all.
Have you ever had your granny make one of those cakes that when she cut into it, the icing cracked and broke off in huge fudgey chunks? THIS is THAT icing! I make a peanut butter version of it, too.
This cake has an interesting history in my life. When Ricky and I got married, he had just graduated from college and I was still working on my Home Economics degree. So, in order for us to have a little extra money, I made this cake. Back then I sold them for $18 each and I felt like I was making a fortune. Every now and then someone would write me a check for $20 and I was really living the big time then! As a result, I have a special fondness for this cake on many levels: My grandmama, sweet memories of days gone by, and the joy of being able to make a little extra money to help ends meet. Aside from that, it’s just a good old timeless recipe. I hope you get to try it soon.
You’ll need: Milk, All Purpose Flour, Sugar, Baking Powder, Vanilla, Cocoa, Three sticks butter, & 5 Eggs. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour your pan. What I do is fold a paper towel, put it over my hand and dip into the shortening, then smear it all around. Take a bit of flour and pour into the pan and move your pan around, patting it a bit, to get the flour to coat the sides. Then I turn it upside down and shake out the excess flour into the trash can.
Place milk, sugar, butter, shortening, and salt in a heavy sauce pan over medium high heat.
Once it reaches a rolling boil, stop stirring and allow to boil on its own for two minutes.
Remove from heat. Add cocoa powder and vanilla. Stir until well blended.
Ingredients
- CHOCOLATE POUND CAKE:
- 1+1/2 cups butter
- 3 teaspoons vanilla
- 3 Cups sugar
- 1/2 Cup Cocoa
- 5 Eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 3 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 Cups Milk
- GLAZE:
- 1+1/2 Cup Sugar
- 7 Tablespons Whole Milk
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons Shortening
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- 1/2 Cup Cocoa
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour bundt pan, set aside. Cream butter in large mixing bowl. Add sugar, beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In separate bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, and baking powder. Measure milk and stir vanilla into it. Add milk and dry ingredients alternately to batter in mixing bowl, mixing after each addition. Pour into pan and bake for one hour and twenty minutes. Let cool for ten minutes before removing from pan and allowing to cool completely before adding glaze.
- For glaze, Combine sugar, cocoa, milk, shortening, margarine, and salt in heavy saucepan. Bring to a rolling , stirring constantly. Once it reaches a rolling boil, allow to boil without stirring for two minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Stirr until cooled just slightly. Spoon over cooled cake.
You might enjoy my Grandmama’s No Fail 7 Minute Icing!
This recipe featured in Meal Plan Monday and Weekend Potluck!
Yum 
Ugh, your blog reminds me why I DESPISE cooking. That sure looks like a lot of work for one cake. I’m lazy and would rather just buy one from Kroger 🙂 Of course, if you made one and invited me over to eat it I would surely oblige.
Have you ever heard the story of the Little Red Hen? lol….I have made this cake several times and everyone loves it!
Oh Cindy, you must sit on a pillow! And, to think, you are missing out on all the raves you would get from family and friends. Really, it’s not that hard.
Just wanted to say thank you, for sharing your thoughts and all that you are doing you have been and continue to be a great example for us all
Kroger cakes can’t compare to homemade.
I think it is a lot of work, too. I don’t normally go to *that* much trouble for a cake but this one is kinda special. The kind of special that you may actually die of heart disease as a result of eating too much of it, but you go ahead and take that risk anyway on accounta its s’dern good!
If I ever actually see you again, I’ll DEFINITELY make this cake for you! Its amazing how far off Nashville is when we both have kids.
If I were to use self rising flour how much
would I use? Your response will be greatly
appreciated 😉
EEep! Don’t use self rising in this. I tried that once. This is the only recipe in which that substitution was a completely disaster. Trust me 🙂
Yep this looks like a winner
Would you like to know what NOT to do to this recipe?? When I tried this one a few years ago, I was assured that it was an easy recipe and “you can’t screw it up”. Well, guess what? I screwed it up big time!!! Now let me make something clear, I am known as The Queen of Cuisine. I love cooking and eating as much Christy does, I just don’t have the time to do it as much as I would like.
Anyway, I realized I didn’t have any butter, so I looked in the pantry and saw I had butter flavored Crisco. I read in the directions that it can be substituted for butter but you have to add water. Well I did that. I followed the directions to the letter. I mixed it up, poured it into my pan and stuck it into the over. In the mean time, I am on the phone with Christy and I smell something burning. The cake has only been in the over now for about 20 minutes. I walk in the kitchen and I see flames and smoke coming out of the oven! After I got the fire put out with the fire extinguisher (have you ever had to clean up after you use one of those?? It’s not easy!) I call Christy back to see if we could figure out what went wrong. The only thing we came up with was the baking powder did NOT mix well with the extra water. So take my advice, use real butter ONLY and the cake will be fabulous!!!
~looks innocent~
I substitute margarine. I have actually never used real butter but the butter crisco thing was *supposed* to work (in theory at least).
Why do I feel like I think I owe you a chocolate cake…….
Oh and the Queen of Cuisine will be having recipes on here as well ~wink wink~ ~grin grin~
Oh my Lord, you want to move to California and cook for my family? Keep em coming, we appreciate it!
Absolutely! I’ll move to Cali and have all of you speaking with a southern accent by the time I’m done!
I love feeding people!!!
I too speak with a southern accent, I will go with you and help because there is nothing better then cooking for people that love good food!
Christy this cake looks fabulous. I have to get some cocoa powder at the store. I thought i had some but ran out after i made my chocolate pie last time. Ugh oh well I want to make your chocolate gravy and this cake OMYGOODNESS it looks sinful. Goodness i get so excited over food and recipes. Ü
Oh what I was going to ask…Can I use Splenda in the chocolate pound cake. I definitely did something wrong because it looked beautiful but it did not taste wonderful. Also I used skim milk so I thought that might have made a difference. Any way I think I’m going to try it again with real sugar. It looked and smelled so good and the batter was scrumptious so I am thinking it was the Splenda. Let me know what you think.
Hey Christie! Its so good to hear from you!!
Unfortunately, Splenda can’t be substituted equally for sugar in baked goods recipes, such as breads and cakes. Sugar melts and helps retain moisture in recipes whereas in order to substitute Splenda you must work out a means of adding more liquids as well. Getting the rations correct to yield a good result is pretty difficult and so I just recommend that sugar be used when baking.
However, you can substitute Splenda for sugar in “wet” desserts such as banana pudding and sweet potato pie, as I do just about every time I make them.
Also, I would use whole milk when making this cake or any other baked good that calls for milk. Whole milk has fat in it and a richness of flavor that the outcome relies on. The fat helps it to maintain it’s moisture and tenderness.
I’m so glad you commented and asked such a great question! If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
Now, if you make that cake with whole milk and sugar, get ready. Back in my making-cakes-to-sell days, this one was requested weekly by this one sweet little old lady. She took one look at the recipe and dubbed it “The Walking Coronary” but kept ordering them like clockwork. She and her mother couldn’t resist!
Once, my mother was going on a quilting retreat and I offered to bake something for her to take and share, as most of the ladies do. I made her this cake.
She called wanting me to give her the recipe for it and saying that the ladies were just loving it and couldn’t believe it was low fat.
“LOW FAT??????? Mama, are you crazy? That thing has THREE sticks of butter, THREE cups of sugar, and FIVE eggs and that isn’t even counting the glaze!” We had a great laugh out of that one! Apparently, Mama had gotten my cake recipes confused. 😀
Darn it if it isn’t worth it though!!!
Ok I just finished my 2nd attempt at this one with real sugar this time and my family is still ooooing and ahhhing. It’s sooo good. My Mom says I will have to make this for her church homecoming in a couple of weeks.
I still didn’t have any whole milk so I used the skim and you could tell in the frosting. I will have to get some whole milk and try it again soon. This time to try and help it out (with the skim milk because it wasn’t as sweet and rich as it should be) I filled the center with strawberry pie filling and sprinkled pawdered sugar on top all around. It was beautiful…I’m so excited. Everyone loves it. Thanks for the great recipe and the easy to follow instructions.
Christie: YES!!! YAY!!!
I’m so glad!
Oh, and you know what you could do? Since whole milk is not something you normally use, it would likely go bad in your house and thats just a waste anyway. How about buying canned evaporated milk to use in recipes that call for whole milk? Then you have it on hand and it is shelf stable so no going bad or guilt from having to throw it away!
I’m so thrilled that you liked it!!!!!!
Thank you SO MUCH for letting me know!
I am glad Christie mentioned the Splenda and the milk. Then my next thought was, ‘what about evaporated milk’? and you answered that too. It is so good to be able to read feedback and get answers too! 🙂
My grandma passed and noone had written down her chocolate icing recipe and this icing seems the closest to what I had watched her make. I am going to try it and I will let you know. She is missed so much and you bring her to my mind with so many of your recipes. Thanks for sharing so much more than your recipe’s and your own memories. 🙂
Christy, I’m glad you said you can use evaporated milk if you don’t have whole milk. I only have skim milk and use it in cooking when I need to. My husband LOVES gravy, any kind, so I make him milk gravy and I use skim milk. Now I will have to get some evaporated milk so I will have it on hand when I make mini donuts for my granddaughters.
Christy, I made this beautiful cake. And beautiful it turned out. I havent dove into the cake yet. I made this for my Mother in Law she is arriving today. Me and my oldest son made the cake last night and then this morning we did the glaze. I just made it and poured it all over the top.
Your tip of placing the bowl in cold water to help cool it down really worked. I stared pouring the glaze and your not kidding it does set up quick. It’s so pretty my dh came down the stairs this morning and said ummm I can smell chocolate. Ü
I hope she arrives soon so i can have piece of this cake UGH!!!!!!
Christy, Christy, Christy…… This cake is just wet your pants good. OMYGOODNESS it is just terrrific. The glaze took the cake ove the top. I am so excited that it turned out so good. My MIL has already had a piece and we are browsing through your site as I type.
Tina: Thank you for emailing me a photo of your cake! IT WAS GORGEOUS! My mother stopped dead in her tracks when I showed it to her on my phone and said “that DID turn out good!”
I know it takes a lot of work, but WOW is it worth it! You MASTERED it on the first try too! GO YOU!!
I LOVED THIS CAKE. It has become one of my favorite cake’s recipe. Yes it takes longer than the box ones, but it should tastes 100 times better I absolutely love it.
dis recipe is da bomb..i dnt know why some haters have to go around and hatin it…yooh call dis recipe a lot of work but den its got to be a lot of work..life ain’t just about less works..and sometimes yooh just have to get off them lazy butts nd do some cooking because dats wat we cookeers do..not just sit nd complain..serously, dis is da best pound cake i’ve ever tasted and yea, its really not dat hard if you don’t use ur head!!!
Hey Cindy, um Christy, this has nothing at all to do with the recipe itself but your ingredients picture reminded me of it. Yesterday when I was tacking a pic of the mac-m-cheese I made Edward had me take a picture of his plate too. It was too cute. He brought his plate to me and said “Mimi, picture too please.” He is too darn smart for his own good.
by the way exactly how much butter is needed in the icing, I guess that I overlooked it. I am making this for our “young marrieds class’ get together over the weekend. Can hardly wait!!!!
I had to go borrow my neighbor’s cake pan – because we HAVE to make this tonight! 😀
BTW: I totally love the beautiful plate featured in the final picture!
I am making this in the morning-looks great!
I’m amazed that it appears that it rose so perfectly when only 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder is use. Is this because it’s a pound cake? …The fact that it’s made with several eggs which gives it that lift? I always fear not having enough leavening. Still, I know one has to be careful about using too much leavening. I guess all doubt will be removed when I actually make this great looking cake. My family should love it as most don’t like cakes that go beyond simple. Faith will be made reality in the evidence.
Hey! Yes Ma’am! It rises very well. Of course, there is a LOT of batter, too, so it doesn’t have to rise much. The eggs are beat a good bit as well.
Once, I decided I’d substitute self rising flour for the plain and just leave out the leavening ingredients (since they are already in the SR Flour) and it rose WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much, overflowed the cake pan, and made quite a mess. My house smelled pretty good though, until the chocolate cake in the bottom of the oven started burning. Still I’ll take burned chocolate smell over no chocolate smell anyday!
hehe
I hope you enjoy it. Nothing like a homemade pound cake either way you go.
By the way, your comment was the most poetic one I’ve read in a very long time. You have a natural poetry to your writing that is a pure joy to read, even if its just a few sentences!
Gratefully,
Christy
This cake sounds perfect! I was looking for a chocolate pound cake and I found it! Thank you!!
I am making this cake tonight. It sounds a lot like my grandmothers cake and I had lost the recipe for it. Thank you for this wonderful recipe! Teresa Crowe
Ok…now I am really confused. The recipe includes butter as an ingredient, yet Southern Plate states she always uses margarine. Which do I use? Also, in the peanut butter icing, margarine was used. Which is better and why…or does it really make a difference?
Either works in the pound cake but I would stick with margarine in the pb icing.
Hope this helps!
Gratefully
Christy
I have been looking for a really good chocolate pound cake and this is it, The glaze is fabulous! I adored the cake and will make again. We had our neighbors over for cake and iced tea. I sent some to hubby’s friends. It was fun to make, fun to eat and fun to share.
I made the icing today for a 9×13 chocolate cake. It is delish. The icing like you say does crack so I use a sharp knife to cut it. It was easy to make although it looked difficult.
Thanks.
Judy,
How long did you bake it and at what temp? I dont have a bundt pan big enough. Thanks
Just made this chocolate pound cake and it is Amazing!
Hi Christy~my splenda says that it is for baking also. I always bake with splenda and have always had good results with it. I also always use skim milk. I haven’t tried it on this cake yet , but just can’t bring myself to add all that sugar. 🙂
I use to cater weddings and did all the wedding cakes. Of course I didn’t use the splenda with those. I used all the real sugar, butter and milk . LOL
Well- just as an FYI- USE THE BIGGEST BOWL YOU OWN! It MIGHT be big enough. I thought for sure my vintage Pyrex was up to the task- HA! I barely fit it all in, but after one bowl transfer, I managed to do it! 🙂 Now it’s baking, and smells ah-ma-zing! I’m gonna let it cool tonight and then I’m going to put the icing on top after it cools in the morning. I’m pretty sure I’m probably going to be short a piece or two before then though ;).
Christy- is this just the chocolate version of the PB fudge icing?
I hope you like it Jessica!! It is very similar to the Peanut Butter version.