Melt-In-Your-Mouth Butter Cake
Get ready for the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, easy-to-make Butter Cake recipe! We’re putting this recipe into a bundt pan for a beautiful design, while also utilizing the grooves of the pan to secure turbinado sugar, which bakes onto the cake, creating the yummiest “crunch” with every bite of your buttery, moist cake.
The Most Delicious Butter Cake Recipe
I’m so excited to share with you this delicious Butter Cake Recipe. After several rounds of testing and tasting, it’s everything I hoped it would be. The cake is rich, but also tender and moist. You are going to love the flavor, as well as the ease of making this bundt cake recipe.
What Is Butter Cake?
Butter Cake gets its name from the main ingredient – butter. Along with two full cups of butter, butter cake calls for just a handful of other basic ingredients: sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and buttermilk. It is a classic cake that can be served on its own or paired with berries, whipped cream, or butter sauce. You may often hear this cake called, Kentucky Butter Cake or Gooey Butter Cake. I’d say my version is definitely more of a simple butter cake, like the Kentucky butter cake, with a dense, moist, flavorful crumb and less of the “gooey” element from the other cake.
Butter Cake Ingredients
The recipe calls for a handful of simple ingredients that are probably already in your pantry or that you can easily get from any grocery store:
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Unsalted butter
- Sugar
- Eggs
- Buttermilk
- Vanilla extract
- Turbinado sugar
You’ll whip this recipe up in about 15 minutes and then bake for about 70 minutes.
Pro Tips for Making Butter Cake
- Use room temperature ingredients – the butter, eggs, and buttermilk should be room temperature before making this cake to ensure the ingredients mix evenly and are absorbed generously by the dry ingredients. This helps your cake to rise well.
- Don’t over mix the batter once you add the dry ingredients – using a low speed at this point ensures that the cake doesn’t become dense.
- Even if you use a non-stick bundt pan, you will still want to spray the pan with nonstick spray and coat it with the turbinado sugar.
- Allow the bundt cake to cool completely before removing it from the pan.
Frequently Asked Questions About Butter Cake
What bundt pan did you use for this cake?
I used THIS Nordic Ware square bundt pan and am just obsessed with the design!
What Can I Serve with Butter Cake?
I think this butter cake is completely delicious and perfect on its own, but you can always add some toppings! I’d recommend berries or peaches, as well as whipped cream, ice cream, butter sauce, salted caramel or even chocolate ganache!
How do I store leftovers?
No need to freeze or refrigerate this cake if you plan to serve it within a few days of making it. Cover it and store it at room temperature once the cake has cooled completely.
Can I freeze this cake?
If you do need to store this cake for more than a few days, yes, freeze the butter cake. After it’s completely cooled, wrap it securely with plastic wrap or aluminum foil before freezing. Thaw at room temperature overnight before serving
Other Bundt Cake Recipes You’ll Love
- Biscoff Bundt Cake
- Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
- Red Velvet Bundt Cake
- Chocolate Bundt Cake
- Pumpkin Bundt Cake
Butter Cake
Ingredients
- 3 1/4 cups (406 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 2 cups (452 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon (13 g) vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (120 g) buttermilk, at room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray a 10 to 12 cup Bundt pan with nonstick spray and then coat the bottom and sides of the Bundt pan with turbinado sugar.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes, stopping to scrape sides of bowl occasionally.
- With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl and beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.
- With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat until just combined after each addition. Carefully spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. (The batter will be thick).
- Bake for a while 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs on it.
- Don’t worry if the cake sinks a tad as it cools.
- Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan before inverting it onto a cake plate/stand.
Cant wait to try it
This cake was delicious! It truly melts in your mouth. Buttery, dense, that crust, Amazing! I made it with KA measure for measure gluten free flour and I don’t think it was quite right, but we still loved it. I may have to make it again with regular flour, I’m just not sure I will be able to stay away from it if I do.
I love your recipes. Thank you for sharing.
Diana
Does it have to be a bundt pan?
Nope!
Delicious! Love, love this cake!
I’m a HUGE fan of butter cake! This July I’m making my wedding cake and was wondering if I could turn this into a layer cake? Thanks for your help. Your recipes are great 🙂 I love all of your content!
Yes you can. Reduce bake time to usual 20-25 mins for 3 layers
I followed the recipe where it said put 2 cup of unsalted butter. It turn out soaked in butter and dripping, but I would still love to try making this again and fix my mistakes! Any recommendation of how to fix it would be appreciated!
I’m not sure if it was mixed well enough or if your oven temp is off? I suggest getting an oven thermometer and testing.
My cake cracked and sank pretty drastically while cooling in the pan. Is there anything that will keep that from happening?
Hi! I’m wondering how you’d convert this to bundtlets. And do you have any tips for sanding the sides of the pan with the turbinado? Thanks so much!
Reduce bake time to maybe 20ish minutes. Spray pan with nonstick spray and then add sugar to coat the sides.
Delicious cake! I made it just the other day. It was baking beautifully and then when it was cooling, it cracked drastically and it fell quite a bit. When inverted the Bundt actually collapsed. Maybe cook it longer? Thanks!
Yes, bake a tad longer. It will sink and crack a bit because its a heavier, denser cake.
I have made this numerous times for family and friends and it’s absolutely delicious!!! The dusting of the pan with turbinado sugar…genius ❤️ I even used vegan butter and buttermilk and made it for a friend’s birthday (she’s vegan but will eat pasture free eggs thank goodness:) and everyone loved that version too!!! Thanks for the recipe ❤️
Yay!
Did I miss anything in this recipe? How many eggs? Could not find it. Thank you .
There are two eggs. You’ll notice them toward the bottom of the list 🙂
This is by far, the BEST cake that I have ever had!! I made it for a party and it was gone by the end! It was fun to walk around and hear people I don’t know raving about it. YUM!
Thank you so so much!
Is it possible to turn this into cupcakes? If so, do you have any recommendations as to how? I love buttercake but like cupcakes better as far as size/sharing haha
I haven’t made these into cupcakes yet but it will probably make 24 to 30 cupcakes. Don’t change the recipe, just reduce the baking time.