EBCI Black Walnut Pound Cake
A rich sour-cream pound cake carrying the unmistakable deep flavor of black walnuts, from a recipe shared by EBCI Tribal Foods.
About this dish
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Food Distribution Program publishes this Black Walnut Pound Cake as a community recipe adapted from Lucille Wolfe. It is a modern pound cake formula—flour, butter, shortening, eggs, sour cream and sugar—with black walnuts as the defining regional ingredient. This page keeps that modern community framing instead of inventing a pre-contact origin for a European-style cake.
Why this dish matters
Black walnut trees are native to eastern North America and their intensely flavored nuts have long been gathered across the southern Appalachians. The specific cake here, however, is a contemporary EBCI community recipe. Tribal Foods publishes it as part of a broad recipe collection serving present-day Cherokee households, demonstrating that living Indigenous foodways include both long-standing ingredients and newer kitchen forms.
This is an adaptation of a modern community recipe published by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, not a ceremonial or ancient Cherokee dish. The EBCI source credits Lucille Wolfe.
Preparation notes
Black walnuts have a much stronger, earthier flavor and are the defining ingredient.
Tossing the nuts with the dry ingredients helps distribute them instead of letting them sink.
Bundt pans vary; bake until a tester from the deepest part comes out with moist crumbs but no wet batter.
Ingredients & detailed method
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup black walnut pieces
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 1 cup sour cream
Method
- 1.Heat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 10- to 12-cup Bundt pan thoroughly.
- 2.Whisk flour and baking powder, then toss the black walnuts through the flour until coated.
- 3.Beat sugar, butter and shortening until pale and creamy, 3–4 minutes.
- 4.Whisk eggs, milk and sour cream in a separate bowl until smooth.
- 5.Add the dry mixture to the creamed fat in three additions, alternating with the wet mixture. Mix only until each addition disappears.
- 6.Fold gently once or twice to make sure the nuts are evenly distributed, then scrape batter into the pan and level the top.
- 7.Bake 75–90 minutes. Checkpoint: the cake should pull slightly from the pan edges and a tester inserted deep in the center should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- 8.Cool in the pan 15 minutes, invert onto a rack and cool completely before slicing.
Worth finding before you cook
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