14 Lush Sour Cream Desserts

These 14 creamy and luscious sour cream desserts will change your mind about how to use sour cream in baked goods!

Did you think that sour cream is a topping exclusively reserved for baked potatoes, chili, and tacos? 

Sour cream is like an “upgrade” button for sweet treats, transforming dry cakes into delicious masterpieces that you’ll crave, and plain old pudding into something more akin to the ambrosia of legend. 

You can even make homemade sour cream if you want to go that extra step for freshness.

Its fat content makes it a key player in traditional bakes, like the luscious sour cream desserts Rhubarb Vanilla Pound Cake and lovely Apple Spice Sour Cream Bundt Cake.

It adds depth of flavor to the Panna Cotta with Berry Sauce. 

The tang of sour cream completely transforms Chocolate Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Sour Cream Ganache.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab your mixing bowls, a clean kitchen towel, and your beloved electric mixer We’ve got a collection of sour cream desserts right here!

Time to get mixing!

1. Moist Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cakes can be notoriously drier than Texas heat in the middle of July, but that’s nothing a dollop of sour cream can’t handle. 

This classic sour cream chocolate cake is fudgy and rich, with a thin layer of indulgent chocolate frosting on top.

It gracefully sits right at the border of sweet-but-not-too-sweet, which means that it’s the perfect solution for dinner guests who are hard to please.

2. Easy No-Bake Sour Cream Cake

Why crank up the oven when you can just open up the fridge instead? 

This sour cream dessert is a testament to the tangy condiment. 
If you’re not in the mood for hours of baking, this recipe requires no oven. 

A chocolate biscuit crust serves as the foundation for a heavenly, creamy custard. 

It is then topped with more cookie crumbles for good measure.

3. Apple Spice Sour Cream Bundt Cake

Do you dream exclusively in shades of mustard yellow, burgundy, and hunter green? 

Are you the first person in line at the apple orchard every single September?

Then, boy, do we have a treat for you!

The Apple Spice Bundt Cake is absolutely packed with fall flavors, like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. 

Our star ingredient adds a subtle tartness to help balance all that sweet and spicy, so prepare your palette for a complex bite from these easy sweets made with sour cream. 

4. Coconut Cream Swig Cookies

This coconut cream cookie recipe packs all the creamy deliciousness of a coconut cream pie into one cute little cookie. 

This recipe is a take on the Swig Cookies made famous in Utah soda pop shops. 

They’re buttery, crisp, and served cold with a generous glob of frosting on top. 

Get ready to go to coconut heaven the moment you sink your teeth into this dense little darling topped with a decadent buttercream.

5. One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes With Sour Cream Dark Chocolate Ganache Frosting

For all those home chefs out there who adore chocolate but hate washing the dishes (which is at least 99%, right?), it doesn’t get any better than this. 

The cupcakes are a pretty standard recipe, but the real showstopper is the cloudy mound of sour cream chocolate ganache swirled on top. 

It’s silky smooth, sets up firm, and mixes in the same bowl you made your batter. 

If you’re still unsure whether you should go ahead and preheat your oven to 350, remember that washing fewer dishes means more time for looking up other sour cream desserts!

6. Rhubarb Vanilla Pound Cake

For all you rhubarb rejecters out there, prepare to change your mind. Desserts with sour cream tend to maintain plenty of moisture during baking, and the Rhubarb Vanilla Pound Cake is no exception. 

The first time you sink your fork into this deliciously dense pound cake, you’ll be hooked for life. 

The tender inside contrasts against the crackling sugar outside for a textural experience you won’t soon forget.

7. No-Bake Sour Cream Lemon Pie

Get ready to fall in love with a showstopping no-bake beauty that is almost too pretty to eat. 

Summer-y, citrusy lemon custard puts most other sour cream desserts to shame, especially when it’s being served in a crisp graham cracker crust with rosettes of whipped cream on top. 

When you show up at the neighborhood BBQ with this, be prepared to share the secret for creating a sharp yet sweet pie filling because everyone will be begging for the recipe. 

8. Cookies And Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes

Cupcakes need to watch out. There’s a new king of the muffin tin here to usurp the throne. 

Fans of cheesecake know how much of a pan it can be to make. 

Between the water bath, cracking top, and long bake times, it hardly feels like it’s worth the effort that goes into making it. 

Enter cookies and cream cheesecake cupcakes. 

The crust is an entire Oreo, topped with a sour cream cheesecake base, then sprinkled with more crushed Oreos. 

It’s like a sandwich cookie, except the cookie part is two cookie sandwiches, and the filling is cheesecake. 

What a time to be alive!

9. Easy Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

Whoever first thought of filling a birthday cake with a layer of ice cream was brilliant. 

Still, the person who had the idea of making it into a sour cream dessert is an absolute genius.

It’s hard to deny the brilliance of stacking uber moist chocolate cake with homemade chocolate ice cream, then frosting it all in chocolate whipped cream.

Once the ice cream starts to melt just a little, it soaks into the coffee-enhanced cake, making it taste more like a mocha frappuccino than a baked good. 

10. The Best Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

While chocolate, banana, and sour cream might not sound like a killer combo, this recipe is living proof that the best desserts made with sour cream are often more than the sum of their parts. 

The high-fat content in sour cream adds a luxurious richness that you just won’t get from heavy cream or whole milk. 

Add in the secret treasure troves of thinly sliced bananas throughout the batter, crunchy chopped nuts, and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chips, and you’ve got one exquisitely flavorful loaf. 

11. Chocolate Toffee Caramel Cake

The name of this sour cream dessert reads more like a shopping list for a candy store, but all incorporated into one DIY delicacy. 

It’s a skyscraper chocolate chip cake stacked with thick layers of caramel sauce and heath bar, arranged into an impossibly high structure that architects would envy. 

12. Cinnamon Apple Cake Roll

Remember how tasty a lovely Swiss Roll snack cake was as an after-school treat when you were a child?Well, you’re all grown up now, and so is that nostalgic childhood treat. 

In terms of sour cream desserts, the Cinnamon Apple Roll Cake deserves its accolades. 

It combines a tender cinnamon apple cake with cream cheese icing and apples cooked in spicy cinnamon, brown sugar, and plenty of butter. 

13. Creamy White Vanilla Fudge

There’s just something about a simple piece of fudge that feels even more decadent than eating a slice of cake. 

Fudge might seem like a surprising example of sour cream desserts, but all that surprise will quickly turn into adoration after you’ve had a piece. 

The best part of this recipe is that it’s an easy, basic fudge that can be completely transformed when you get creative with the mix-ins and toppings. 

Just be sure to use full-fat sour cream for maximum creaminess!

14. Panna Cotta With Berry Sauce

Silky smooth and absolutely gorgeous when layered in a stemless wine glass, this Panna Cotta with Berry Sauce is restaurant quality without a single bit of professional restaurant experience required. 

This version is well-balanced, thanks to the subtly sweet cooked custard and fresh, fruity berry sauce. 

Sour cream helps everything set to a firm texture, adds a bit of tanginess, and creates a depth of flavor that makes a massive difference in the final product.

The bottom line

Swap out your whole milk or heavy cream in your favorite sweets in favor of sour cream to enhance, moisten, and revamp your favorite after-dinner treats. 

There’s nothing quite like the tang of sour cream desserts, so let us offer our humble apology if your fridge becomes a storage locker for this integral ingredient, always on hand for your next baking inspiration. 

Want to spend a little time getting to know this champion of the dairy aisle? 

Try one of the recipes from this list and start baking with sour cream now. 

Looking for alternatives to sour cream? This list will help. 

And if you have more sour cream than you can use right away, here’s how to best freeze it.