Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake with Heart-Shaped Strawberries

This moist and dense, easy-to-make, from scratch, Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake is a delicious Paula Deen cake recipe that is decorated with pink almond butter cream frosting and fresh strawberries. It’s a decadent dessert for Valentine’s Day!

Every year as Valentine’s Day approaches, I feel guilty if I don’t plan a special day for my husband.

He’s a good guy and deserves to know how much we appreciate him. He always brings me flowers for Valentines’ Day and I get him a lousy greeting card from the Dollar Store.

That hardly seems fair. But, knowing he LOVES sweets, I created something for him he can’t wait to dig his fork into- an Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake with Heart-Shaped Strawberries! Plus, I recruited the kids to help of course!

Pink icing is a must! Heart-shaped strawberries are perfect. Ah, what a beautiful and delicious cake!

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Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake with Heart-Shaped Strawberries

Paula Deen Sour Cream Pound Cake

As I mentioned above, this cake recipe is a Paula Deen Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake and is absolutely delicious! The only change I made to Paula’s recipe is replacing the orange extract with almond extract thereby doubling the amount of almond extract. I’ve made it many times and it freezes well too! This cake is great for any time of year!

While taking the photos of this lovely pound cake, my husband kept asking me anxiously “When can we cut it?” He’s worse than the kids sometimes! My husband has gotten a sweet tooth over the years!

When we first dated, he was looking for something sweet to eat so he asked me well into January “Where’s the box of chocolates I gave you for Christmas? I replied with a surprised grin, “That box was gone long ago!” I mean really? Why would a good box of chocolates be lying around with a chocoholic?

My three-year old could not keep his hands out of the mixing bowl of icing. He is a sweet eater too! I caught him red-handed! Our boys especially liked helping to make Conversation Hearts Chocolate Brownies which is another good Valentine’s Day recipe. They love licking the chocolate from the bowl.

The cake is really flavorful, a little moist, and dense. I love that the edges are a little crusty. The almond butter cream frosting is a perfect accompaniment to this flavorful pound cake but tastes great even without the icing.

If you aren’t a fan of almond extract you can use any of the substitutions below.

Substitute for almond extract:

• vanilla extract
• lemon extract
• orange extract
• coconut extract

How to Make Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake with Heart-Shaped Strawberries

1. First, cream the butter with the sugar.
2. Then, add the sour cream and almond extract.
3. Next, combine the flour and baking soda and sift it into the butter mixture alternatively with the eggs.
4. Then, put the batter in an oil sprayed heart-shaped Wilton 10″ heart-shaped baking pan and baked it for one hour and ten minutes on 325F (bake 1 hr and 20 min in a tube pan.) My cake pan was not big enough to hold all of the batter so, I put the excess into a loaf baking pan.

I used Baker’s Joy in the baking pans. It has flour in it and works perfectly for baking. The cake pops right out of the pan after I ran a knife around the rim of the cake.

Heart Shaped Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake

How to Make Almond Butter Cream Icing

While the cake was cooling, I made the Almond Butter Cream Icing. That is simple too.

1. First, mix softened butter with powdered sugar.
2. Then, add the almond extract and add tablespoon of milk, if needed. The milk helps to thin out the icing a little so it is spreadable if your butter isn’t soft enough.
3. Next, add a couple of drops of red food coloring to make the icing pink.

How to Assemble the Cake and Decorating

1. First, cut the cake in half with a long bread knife.
2. Next, frost the bottom layer and then topped it with the other cake layer.
3. Then, frost the top and just a little on the sides. Remove the excess icing from the sides of the cake with the cake spreader to get the “naked cake” effect. It looks pretty cool! The butter cream icing is rich and sweet so just a little icing on top is enough.
4. Next, cut the strawberries in half and cut a “V” at the top.
5. Then, arrange the strawberries on the pink icing around the perimeter of the cake as shown in the pictures.
6. Next, sprinkle red, sparkled sugar on top.
7. Finally, use a heart-shaped cookie cutter as a guide on the icing and trace the heart shape with the red sparkled icing. Or, you can draw the heart by free hand.

This cake is perfect for special anniversaries too. You can write the number of years you are married in the middle instead of the heart or inside the heart.

Looks pretty doesn’t it? So, don’t feel guilty for just getting your husband a Dollar Store greeting card for Valentine’s Day and make this beautiful Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake with Heart-Shaped Strawberries for your family. This cake would make anyone feel special and loved.

Heart-shaped naked cake with heart-shaped fresh strawberries

This post was updated on February 3, 2023.

I took this recipe to Weekend Potluck.

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5 from 1 vote

Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake with Heart-Shaped Strawberries

This delicious Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake and Almond Butter Cream frosting recipes are adapted from Paul Deen's almond pound cake recipe. It's rich and freezes well too.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword heart shaped sour cream pound cake

Prep Time 40 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 50 minutes minutes

Servings 16 Servings

Calories 393cal

Ingredients

• Recipe courtesy of Paula Deen

Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 sticks of butter softened
• 1 1/2 tsps of almond extract
• Pam with Flour cooking spray or butter and flour for baking pan

Almond Buttercream Frosting

• 4 cups confectioner's or powdered 10x sugar
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter softened
• 1 1/2 tsp of almond extract optional
• Decorating:
• 8 or more fresh strawberries with cut "v" at the top
• 2 whole strawberries for garnish
• red decorating gel
• red sugar sprinkles
• 2 drops of red food coloring

Instructions

• Recipes courtesy of Paula Deen (except I omitted orange extract and added more almond)

Almond Sour Cream Pound Cake

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• In the bowl of a mixer, cream 2 sticks butter and sugar together and then add sour cream. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of almond extract and stir to combine.
• Sift flour and baking soda together. Add flour mixture to creamed butter mixture alternately with eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
• Spray baking pan with Pam with Flour baking spray or butter and flour baking pan.
• Pour into prepared pan and bake on 325F for 1 hour and 10 or 1 hr 20 min if using a tube pan.
• Cool cake in pan for about 10 minutes and then remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Almond Butter Cream Frosting

• With an electric mixer, cream 1 1/2 sticks butter in a large mixing bowl.
• Slowly beat in the confectioner's sugar until smooth and creamy and sweetened to your liking (about 2 minutes).
• Add 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract and stir to blend.
• Add a tablespoon of milk if icing is too thick to spread on cake.
• Frost cake when fully cooled. If you are not using the frosting immediately, store it, covered, in the refrigerator and then bring it to room temperature just prior to using.
• Using a long bread knife, cut the cake half.
• If you want the white layer of frosting in the middle, add the red food coloring after you frost the middle or before if you want pink icing in the middle. Add frosting to the bottom cake layer. Put top cake layer on.
• Spread frosting evenly on top of the cake. Put some frosting on the sides and then remove it with a spreader or knife.
• Add strawberries as shown in picture.
• Add sprinkles in the middle of the cake up to the strawberries.
• Draw a heart with the red decorating gel in the middle. Tip: Leave an imprint on the cake with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and then trace it with gel. Or, fold a piece of paper and draw a half heart, open cut it and use that to trace.

Notes

Prep time for the cake as shown in photos includes decorating.

Store leftover cake in the refrigerator for up to 3 days to maintain freshness. 

Freeze pound cake with icing in freezer bags for up to 3 months.

Nutrition

Serving: 0g | Calories: 393cal | Carbohydrates: 0g | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Saturated Fat: 0g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0g | Trans Fat: 0g | Cholesterol: 0mg | Sodium: 0mg | Potassium: 0mg | Fiber: 0g | Sugar: 0g | Vitamin A: 0IU | Vitamin C: 0mg | Calcium: 0mg | Iron: 0mg