Name: Kentucky Butter Cake
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 16
Ingredients: butter, melted; Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar; eggs, room temperature; pure vanilla extract; baking powder; baking soda; salt; all-purpose flour*; buttermilk (no substitutions); Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar; unsalted butter; water

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Kentucky Butter Cake

This Kentucky butter cake is a delicious and moist cake topped with a scrumptious sauce leaving you wanting more. This recipe also has the perfect amount of sweetness that will make your taste buds happy. It is also very easy to make, and you can even give it a try today!

The Kentucky butter cake was originally made by the Kentucky dairy farmers association in 1953 as part of an advertising campaign for Kentucky farms milk. The recipe has since become one of the most popular desserts in Kentucky. And for good reason, it is delicious!

This recipe for Kentucky Butter Cake is so simple and turns out delicious every single time. The key to making this a perfectly moist, buttery cake is to bring all of the cold ingredients to room temperature. This will ensure a soft, tender crumb. The sweet butter glaze on top of the cake also helps keep the cake moist.

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This post has been sponsored by Dixie Crystals, but all opinions are 100% my own. This post may contain affiliate links.

Ingredients

Butter Cake

butter, melted
Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
eggs, room temperature
pure vanilla extract
baking powder
baking soda
salt
all-purpose flour
buttermilk (no substitutions)

Sweet Butter Glaze

Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
butter
water

How to Make Kentucky Butter Cake

Step 1 – Beat together the butter, sugar, and eggs. Then you’ll mix in the rest of the ingredients to make a fluffy batter that’s light in color.

Step 2 – Spread the batter in a generously greased bundt pan. I used a silicone bundt pan for the first time when I made this cake, and I’ll never go back. It was amazing!!

Step 3 – Bake the cake. Make the Sweet Butter Glaze while the cake is in the oven.

Step 4 – While the cake is still hot, poke tiny holes all over the cake and spoon the glaze over top. Use a small rubber spatula or a knife to gently pull the sides of the cake away from the pan so that the glaze can run down the sides. Let the cake cool completely before serving.

Everything You need to Know About Kentucky Butter Cake

What’s the difference between pound cake and butter cake?

A traditional pound cake is made with one pound each of butter, flour, and sugar. A butter cake has similar (if not exactly the same) ingredients with different measurements. The old-school 1:1:1 ratio of butter, flour, and sugar isn’t used as often these days. So more often than not, that pound cake you’re making is probably a butter cake.

How do you make a moist butter cake from scratch?

Bring your cold ingredients to room temperature. This makes all the difference in the world!

Use real full-fat buttermilk. I know a lot of people don’t keep buttermilk on hand, and so they use substitutions for it in baking thinking that it can’t make that big of a difference. And in some recipes, that’s the case. But in this recipe, using real buttermilk instead of a substitution will give your cake a tender crumb and keep the inside moist and fluffy.

Adding a simple syrup or a glaze (like the sweet butter glaze in this recipe) to any cake makes it 10x more moist and delicious.

What is the point of using a bundt pan?

The bundt pan allows the cake to be in contact with more of the pan’s surfaces, which allows it to bake more evenly. If a pound cake were to be baked in a regular round or rectangular cake pan, the center of the cake wouldn’t bake all the way through.