Okay so I’m a Kentuckian, and this Kentucky Butter Cake recipe gives me joy, thought I’m not totally sure why it’s named after my home state. Kentucky Butter Cake, if you’re unfamiliar, is like the greatest pound cake you’ve ever (or never?) had. This is so due to its incredibly moist crumb and deep buttered vanilla flavor. There are lots of recipes for Kentucky Butter Cake floating around, and many are based on a championship entry to the Pillsbury Bake Off, as is this one. However, after tinkering with this for years, I’ve determined a few truths that make this particular take on Kentucky Butter Cake so incredibly great.
This is essentially a pound cake that has been gussied up into something somewhat revelatory. I’ll take a pound cake however you give it to me – vegan, cornmeal-based, or Homemade-ish. And this one is the literal cream of the crop. Read on for a little more about my recipe for this beloved bundt, or just jump on ahead to the recipe itself.
Why We Love This Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe (and why we think it’s the best of the best)
A Kentucky Butter cake, as the name would have you guess, is a truly butter-filled delight of a cake, that somehow manages to put butter even more front and center than a traditional pound cake. As a native Kentuckian (I’m in Kentucky as I write this, actually), I am always out to shout and sing the praises of the food that comes from this little Appalachian corner of the world – and this cake is just great.
Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe Ingredient Notes
The Flour: We’ll use all-purpose flour for this cake, as is pretty standard for a Bundt of this sort. Be sure to scoop and level your flour nicely, ensuring you don’t get more than is necessary for this lighter take on a pound cake.
The BUTTER: Ah yes, the whole reason we’re here, really. The butter matters here, and can make a huge difference in your end results. As I so often do with my baking, I reach for the salted butter because it just deepens the flavors of so many things. From cookies and French Toast Casseroles to stovetop apple crisps, you’ll just have to trust me that it’s not only okay to bake with salted butter – it’s usually better.
The Sugars: We’ll use both white granulated and brown sugars in this cake, and that’s one of my two little twists to the classic version (which uses unsalted butter and all white sugar. We’ll implement the brown sugar into the glaze, which will give it this extra buttery, caramel-esque flavor that is just so great.
The Vanilla: Always and forever. I use vanilla bean paste in the glaze, because I usually have it and love it SO MUCH. But a good quality extract is just fine, of course. I typically use extract in the cake itself.
The Glaze: A classic Kentucky Butter Cake recipe will have you pour a vanilla sugar glaze all down over the cake as it’s cooling. In my (slightly tweaked) version, I use brown sugar instead of white sugar, helping to double down on the caramel, doughnut, ultra buttery flavor of this wonderful Bundt cake.
Ways to serve this Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe
This Kentucky Butter Cake is great all on its own – it needs very little if not nothing to shine. That said, seeing as how it’s essentially a pound cake, it is also a very welcoming canvas for other toppings and flavor riffing. Here are a few things you could do to dress her up, if you like …
- Top the cake with freshly sliced seasonal fruit. Sweet stone fruits in the summer. Juicy berries in the spring. Sautéed’ cinnamon apples and/or pears in the fall. You choose! But a little heap of fresh fruit could only serve to heighten the Kentucky Butter Cake experience.
- Top the cake with my favorite honey pickled peaches. These things are truly great, and maybe are happiest when piled atop a fat slice of Kentucky Butter Cake.
- Shower the cooled cake with a dusting of powdered sugar. This is traditional and what you’ll probably see most often for a classic Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe.
- If it’s grilling season, you can lightly grill big slices of your Kentucky Butter Cake and then top with dollops of freshly whipped cream.
Why is it called “Kentucky Butter Cake?”
Not to be confused with the St. Louis-style Gooey Butter Cake, the original Kentucky Butter Cake recipe was one submitted by a woman named Nell Lewis to the 1963 Pillsbury Bake Off, and it won apparently (go Nell!). As someone who has entered and lost that competition, I very much appreciate that feat. However, upon conducting a fairly decent amount of investigation, I have to say that it’s tough to really discern why, exactly, the Kentucky Butter Cake is called that.
The butter part makes sense, seeing as how there is a whopping 1 1/3 cups of the stuff in a single bundt. But the jury’s still out on the Kentucky part, and that’s really just fine. Good cake is good cake, and that’s exactly what we’ve got on our hands with this Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe.
It’s All About Nell Lewis’ Method
This Kentucky Butter Cake is something of a poke cake, if you’ve ever heard of that. Essentially a “poke cake” is a cake that is riddled with lots of little holes, made by essentially stabbing it to death with some appropriately shaped implement. I typically use a knife or a little dowel rod to do this, and I’ve learned (after much trial and error) that the more holes you do, the better your cake will be.
The holes serve as little tunnels, conduits for the brown sugar and vanilla glaze to really sink down and into the cake. They’re the whole trick and secret to this Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe – to its utter lovability. So, there’s the cake itself, which is like a lighter take on a pound cake.
And then there’e the glaze. The glaze not only moistens and flavors the cake itself (the crumb), but it also creates this incredible crust all over. I like to flip the cake over after it has soaked for a good long while inverting it onto a cake plate, and then I drizzle and drip the last of the glaze all over the top, and then let that soak for a bit longer.
Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe Tips
- To get your butter to room temperature quickly, you can unwrap them and place them in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave them on 30% power in 10 to 15-second increments, checking them after each. When they’re nice and soft to the touch, they’re ready and will be much easier to whip up.
- I love to use a light (cream) colored pan for my Bundt cake adventuring, as it almost always ensures that the outer layer/crust of my cakes will come out clean, leaving no bits trapped and stuck behind. Nothing worse than trying to turn out a fresh homemade cake and having a bit chunk of it stick to the pan. So, my best tips are to use a light-colored pan (helps control the cake’s color) and to thoroughly butter and flour the surface of the pan.
- Poke/stab MANY holes into your cake, going down almost all the way, but not entirely through. Your cake’s final moistness and flavor depends on this!
- Allow the cake a few hours to really sit and soak up that glaze before you turn it out.
Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe FAQ’s
How long will a pound cake keep?
A pound cake will typically keep for 3-5 days when stored at room temperature in an airtight container.
Can you freeze a pound cake?
Yes, you can freeze pound cakes. When wrapped snugly, your butter cake will keep nicely in the freezer for up to three months. Be sure to allow the cake to gently and gradually come back up to room temperature by setting it on the countertop to thaw.
What is a butter cake?
A butter cake is a type of cake made with butter, flour, sugar, and eggs as the main ingredients.
What does a Kentucky butter cake taste like?
A Kentucky butter cake typically has a rich, buttery flavor with a dense, moist texture. It honestly almost tastes like a cake doughnut that has been freshly fried and covered in a sweet, syrupy glaze.
Best Ever Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe (Salted Butter & Brown Sugar Version)
With deep caramel and vanilla notes running all throughout both the crumb and crust, our Kentucky Butter Cake recipe leans on salted butter and brown sugar to deepen (and level up) the flavors of the classic bake-off winning 1960s version. The trick? Allow the brown sugar glaze several hours to really sink and seep down into the cake, moistening and flavoring it beautifully.Â
- Yield: One Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 16 tablespoons good quality salted butter at room temperature (two sticks)
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
- Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)
For the glaze
- 1/3 cup good quality salted butter
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Adjust the rack to the middle position. Thoroughly butter and flour a Bundt pan, or you can coat with non-stick spray.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or using a hand-held mixer and mixing bowl), whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until thoroughly combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, eggs, and buttermilk and beat until well mixed.
- To the bowl with the dry ingredients, add the softened salted butter and half of the buttermilk mixture and mix until crumbly. Add the remaining buttermilk mixture and then mix for about two minutes, until the batter is smooth and a pale golden color.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, about 50 to 60 minutes.
- Meanwhile make the glaze, place the 1/3 cup salted butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar, vanilla extract and water. Stir and cook gently until the sugar has totally dissolved. Remove from the heat
- When the cake comes out of the oven, use a knife, a skewer, or a toothpick, and poke lots of holes almost all the way through the cake (about 40 to 45), taking care not to puncture through the other side.
- Pour about ¾ of the glaze down over the cake, working slowly so as to allow the mixture to sink down into the holes/tunnels you created. If it starts to pool, just poke more holes.
- Let the glaze soak into the cooling cake for at least two hours, or overnight if possible, before turning out. Brush the remaining glaze over the top of the cake, going slowly to allow it to really absorb. You can dust with powdered sugar if you like, and enjoy.
