7-Up Pound Cake With Lemon Glaze
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This old-fashioned 7-Up pound cake recipe with lemon glaze is a classic Southern dessert that uses 7-Up to make a buttery and moist from-scratch cake that has a hint of lemon flavor.
Pound cakes are such an integral part of Southern cooking. Made with simple ingredients like butter, flour, sugar, and eggs, they’re known for their crisp crust and velvety soft buttery interior that’s both dense and rich in texture and taste. Pound cakes are also traditionally baked in either a Bundt cake or tube pan.
So while this is a traditional pound cake recipe, it includes a secret ingredient… 7-Up lemon-lime soda. The carbonated soda acts as a leavening agent and replaces baking soda (yep, really). It helps make the cake rise and gives the cake a lemon-lime flavor. This 7-Up pound cake tastes like a classic lemon pound cake. Plus, we pair it with the perfectly complementary sweet lemon glaze.
So besides 7-Up, the other baking ingredients you need to make this pound cake include sugar, flour, butter, eggs, shortening, vanilla extract, and lemon extract. Fortunately, this is a very easy pound cake recipe. You’re just going to cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar, then slowly mix in the remaining ingredients. We pour the cake batter into a bundt pan and wait patiently for it to bake.
Then we have to be patient some more and invert the cake, before mixing together powdered sugar, milk, and lemon extract to make the lemon glaze. The final step is to pour this over the cooled cake and your 7Up pound cake is complete!
Keep scrolling for some serving suggestions and to learn exactly where the 7Up cake came from. I hope you enjoy this classic Southern treat. You’re bound to always find a bundt cake at any Southern gathering, whether it’s a baby shower, potluck, or family gathering. It’s just the Southern way, y’all!
Recipe Ingredients
- Flour
- Granulated sugar
- Shortening
- Unsalted butter or margarine
- 7-Up or similar lemon-lime soda
- Eggs
- Vanilla extract
- A bit of lemon flavoring
How to Make 7-Up Pound Cake
Place your sugar, shortening, and butter in a mixing bowl.
Mix that up until well blended.
Add your lemon extract or flavoring or whatever it is you found in your pantry or went out and bought.
Add in your vanilla…
And all of your eggs.
Mix that up really well.
Add in your flour…
And your 7-Up.
Mix all of that up.
Grease your bundt cake pan with cooking spray.
Then pour your cake batter into the greased bundt pan.
Bake at 325 for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
After it has baked, let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn the cake out onto a wire rack to continue cooling.
Goodness, can you smell that?
The lemon glaze
Now we need to make our glaze.
Place your confectioner’s sugar in a bowl and add a wee bit of lemon flavoring. Then add a wee bit of milk.
Stir that up until it looks kind of like school glue. Don’t worry, it won’t taste like glue 😉.
If it is a bit thin, just add more confectioner’s sugar. I always end up making mine too thin to begin with and have to add more.
Pour the lemon glaze over the cooled cake.
It should look a little bit like this.
Now grab a slice and enjoy your 7Up cake!
Storage
- Store leftover cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days or in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- You can also freeze 7-Up pound cake for up to 3 months. I’d double-wrap individual slices or store them in an airtight container. I’d also freeze them without the glaze if possible.
Recipe Notes
- For best results, use room-temperature butter, shortening, and eggs.
- Another wait to guarantee the best results is to properly grease the cake pan with cooking spray or butter and flour. We definitely don’t want this cake to stick to the pan.
- Don’t overmix the cake batter once you add the flour to make sure your cake doesn’t turn out tough.
- Now, experts say that Sprite and 7-Up have different levels of carbonation, so you really only want to use 7-Up in this pound cake recipe to ensure it rises perfectly. But hey, you can use diet 7-Up if you really want to!
- If you don’t have lemon extract, I’ve got another suggestion for you to give that cake its lemon flavor! First, add 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon zest to the cake batter. Then add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to the glaze.
- Speaking of the glaze, you can make a 7-Up glaze instead by combining 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons of 7-Up.
Recipe FAQs
Where is 7-Up cake from?
7-Up cakes are a Southern recipe, as baking with soda became popular in the South in the 1950s when Southern women realized that carbonated beverages are an innovative leavening agent.
How long should you wait to flip a pound cake?
You should wait at least 10 minutes to flip your pound cake, but some recipes say to wait at least 30 minutes, so you do you. If you’re wondering why you wait, you want the cake to cool and firm up before you flip it to avoid it breaking apart.
Do I have to use a bundt cake pan?
You don’t HAVE to use a bundt pan, but I do recommend it. Otherwise, you can use a tube pan or 2 loaf pans.
Can I make my pound cake in advance?
I recommend making your pound cake up to 24 hours ahead of time. The cake gets moister the longer it sits.
How do you serve 7Up pound cake?
You can serve your pound cake as is or with some fresh fruit (I like fresh berries) and fresh whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. However, you can also skip the glaze and simply serve your cake with a dusting of powdered sugar instead.
You may also like these pound cake recipes:
Aunt Sue’s Easy Pound Cake Recipe
Mini Bundt Cakes Using Aunt Sue’s Famous Pound Cake
Chocolate Pound Cake with Fudge Glaze
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter or margarine
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 1.5 teaspoons lemon extract
- 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 5 eggs
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 7 fluid ounces 7-Up
Lemon Glaze
- 1.5 cups confectioner's sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
Instructions
- In a large bowl, place butter, shortening, and sugar. Beat until it is fluffy and well-mixed.1 cup butter or margarine, 1/2 cup shortening, 3 cups granulated sugar
- Add in lemon extract, vanilla flavoring, and eggs and beat again until blended in.1.5 teaspoons lemon extract, 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract, 5 eggs
- Add in all of your flour and then the 7-Up. Mix until smooth and creamy.3 cups all-purpose flour, 7 fluid ounces 7-Up
- Pour into a greased and floured tube pan. Bake at 325 for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let your cake sit in the pan for 10 to 30 minutes and then turn it out onto a wire rack.
- Combine all the glaze ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until smooth. Add more milk if too thick and more confectioner's sugar if too thin.1.5 cups confectioner's sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
- Pour over the cooled cake.
Nutrition
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble in the road.
~Henry Beecher
I have made this cake several times. First by the recipe and then I combined it with a family recipe like to use. I use two sticks of butter and one stick margarine, add an extra egg to make 6, use 1 tsp of almond extract along with the others, and mix the flour and seven up by alternating one and then the other instead of all flour and the all 7up. The orginal recipe is a little more lighter but I prefer a heavier, richer, more buttery tasting pound cake. As far as the glaze, I don’t need it with my version of the recipe because it is so moist. The few times I have made it I must have done something wrong because it was very hard when it settled and caused the cake to crack when you cut it. I love the video and Thanks Jeanne for the recipe and laugh.
Christy, you are a doll! I thought I was the only one whose family (from TX mind you) used the words “lemon/lime coke”! Jeanne Robertson and her wonderful humor have brightened my life ever since my “left brain” bought XM Radio a few years ago. Now I must hustle out to the kitchen and make one of these cakes. 🙂 My grandma made these for many people when life caused them to need “a little something to make them feel better.” Unfortunately, she baked from memory and none of us grandkids had the good sense to write the measurements down. 🙂
Has anyone experiemented with a smaller amount of sugar for this recipe. I think 3 cups sugar to 3 cups flour sounds like too much. So I tried using 1 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 cup applesauce. It is in the oven. We will see how it tastes!
Let us know how it turns out Bev!
Ok just got done with mines and it was awesome. I used swans cake floor and watkins vanilla extract. I really think it makes a huge impact on moistness and the flavor of the vanilla really pops.
Mmmm. Another success. This one I had to share with the neighbors. It was way to good to keep in the house. Thanks Christy!!!
Thanks for sharing the recipe! I’ve wanted to make this cake ever since I first heard this story. My “left brain” didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did!
You can also use the lemon/lime drink when making pie crust. Just substitute for the water. It works best if the drink is really cold. Makes a good tender crust.