This Kentucky Butter Cake recipe is CRAZY moist, buttery and coated with a sweet buttery sauce that crusts the outside and soaks into the cake making it amazing for days. What you get is a stunning, sweet, buttery, soft cake that is as perfect on its own as it is topped with strawberries and whipped cream!
Kentucky Butter Cake: What To Expect
- Simple Ingredients. Chances are you have everything in your kitchen right now to make this incredibly delicious cake.
- Great to make ahead! I am going to tell you this Kentucky Butter Cake is even better the second day! It gives the cake a chance to absorb all the sugar syrup while relaxing a bit and settling into all its moisture. Certainly it can be enjoyed the same day, but if you have patience, give it a day to become its best self!
- Flavor. While at heart, this is simply a butter cake, the way all the flavors combine with the buttery sugar syrup makes it extra vanilla, while giving it a slightly crunchy crust. Kind of like a huge glazed donut.
- So many serving options! Serve this with whipped cream and strawberries for the best strawberry shortcake of your life!
What Is Kentucky Butter Cake?
Kentucky Butter is the most delicious vanilla pound cake you will ever have. The texture is dense, but tender and it’s topped with a RIDICULOUS butter/sugar/vanilla sauce that soaks into the cake while also leaving it crispy and sweet on top. It’s perfect on its own, along with a cup of coffee, topped with ice cream, or with whipped cream and strawberries. The possibilities are endless.
Ingredients / What You Will Need
Like I said above, this cake recipe is made up of simple ingredients, so I recommend using high quality ingredients. The flavors make the cake! Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of this post to the recipe card for the full ingredient list and instructions.
- Butter. I use salted butter i this recipe, but you can also use unsalted if that’s what you have on-hand or prefer. You use butter in both the cake and the butter glaze.
- Sugars: Use granulated sugar in the cake batter and the butter glaze, and I also use powdered sugar to garnish the cake when done!
- Eggs. Use large sized eggs in this recipe as well as all my baking recipes unless otherwise stated.
- Vanilla extract. You can also use vanilla bean paste if you have that too. Vanilla bean paste will make the cake and the syrup slightly darker in color due to the vanilla beans.
- Dry Ingredients: All purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt.
- Buttermilk. Using buttermilk in this recipe makes the cake tender. If you don’t have buttermilk, you can make your own at home easily. Use My Homemade Buttermilk Recipe!
How To Make Kentucky Butter Cake
The batter goes together in a snap…
- Prep the Pan: Make sure you heavily grease your bundt pan. You can use baking spray/nonstick spray, or you can coat it with butter or shortening and dust it with flour or powdered sugar. You need to make sure your pan is greased liberally because not only will the cake stick, but the sugar syrup can also stick a but too.
TIP: If you do use nonstick baking spray I recommend that you spray it just before adding the batter. I’ve found this technique helps prevent sticking more than spraying the pan and letting it sit before adding the cake batter.
- The batter goes together easily and all the ingredients can be added at the same time just like you would for a cake mix. This cake is pretty foolproof!
- Once the cake is baked make the sugar syrup. Cook the butter, sugar, vanilla, and some water together until the sugar is dissolved, but doesn’t come to a boil.
- Poke holes all in the warm cake and then pour the sugar sauce all over the top! Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan. You can even let it sit overnight in the pan, just run a butter knife around the edges to help the cake from sticking.
Tips:
- Make sure your butter is completely room temperature so you don’t get any lumps! Since you mix everything together at the same time the butter needs to mix in well. If your butter isn’t quite room temperature mix it with the granulated sugar alone to combine and then add in all the other ingredients.
- Allow the bundt cake to cool completely in the pan so the sauce has time to soak in. You can even leave the cake in the pan overnight if you want! The cake gets better the longer it sits!
- Loosen the cake from the sides of the pan with a butter knife! When it’s time, flip the cake out of the pan loosen the cake at its edges to help the process along.
- Finish the cake with a sprinkle of powdered sugar! Dusting it with powdered sugar not only makes it pretty, but helps hide any imperfections in the cake.
Serving Ideas:
The slices are perfect, the flavor is perfect, and you will probably be eating this for breakfast, lunch, and dessert until it’s gone!
- On its own because it’s perfect!
- With fresh fruit and whipped cream!
- Warm with a scoop of ice cream
- Use any leftover sliced thin for French Toast!
Variations:
- Add in a 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract to add a little different flavor!
- Use bourbon or rum in the glaze instead of water to give it a boozy twist!
- Add mini chocolate chips if you love chocolate!
Looking for more Bundt Cake Recipes? Try These:
- Sour Cream Blueberry Bundt Cake
- Praline Bundt Cake
- Fudge Filled Vanilla Bundt Cake
- Marble Pound Cake
This recipe was originally posted in 2015, but has been updated with new tips in 2024!
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Kentucky Butter Cake
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 75 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Yield: serves 12 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Oven/Stove Top
- Cuisine: Dessert
Description
Kentucky Butter Cake is the moistest vanilla pound cake ever, made with simple ingredients.
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup butter, cubed at room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup buttermilk
Butter Glaze
- 1/3 cup butter
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F/165°C. Grease a 10- inch bundt pan with butter or shortening very liberally. Dust the pan with flour and set aside.
- Place all the cake ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low for 30 seconds and then increase the speed to medium and mix for 3 minutes.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 65-75 minutes until a toothpick entered into the center comes out clean.
- When the cake is done make the glaze. Combine all ingredients into a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir continuously until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Do not bring to a boil.
- Poke holes all over the warm cake using a knife and pour the glaze evenly on the cake while still in the pan.
- Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan and then invert the cake onto a serving plate.
- I actually like to make this cake a day in advance, finding it to be more moist and flavorful when it rests overnight.
Notes
Store airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 514
- Sugar: 47.1 g
- Sodium: 296.3 mg
- Fat: 23 g
- Carbohydrates: 71.4 g
- Protein: 6.2 g
- Cholesterol: 118.5 mg
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When you say a cup of butter, cubed. Do you just take cubes into a cup or basically measure “squashed” butter into a cup? I really want to make this but don’t want it to flop due to too much butter or some incorrectly used ingredient on my party. Please help as this looks totally delish??
You take a cup of butter, which is 2 sticks and then cube that.
Super easy to make; came out wonderful; didn’t last long at the office
I made the bundt cake earlier but didn’t get a chance to make the glaze. Will the glaze absorb if I pour it after the cake is cooled completely?
probably not, but it will still be good! Turn it out of the pan and pour the glaze all over the top and let it set 🙂
I just made this and it smells wonderful. Very easy to make. I will have to get back to you on taste. Going to our cabin this weekend with friends so I’ll let you know.
OMG..I’m from the old school of baking when you mix everything seperate..so I cringed as I put ALL the ingredients in the bowl at once..WELL…I am a believer..an awesome cake..I read comments first so I used sugar to coat my earthenware bunt pan
e cake..
Can I used a hand mixer for this Kentucky Butter Cake I don’t have a counter stand mixer?Thank You
yes!
This is an amazing recipe for a butter cake or a pound cake. Two things that amazed me about the cake. One is that I always read all the reviews of any recipe before I make it. And was quite surprised by some of the responses saying their cake was not beautiful and light in color like the pictures, that it was brown. Can’t imagine how that could happen and the only thing I could think of was that they cooked the glaze too long and the sugar had begun to caramelize and turn brown and maybe that caused the cake to look darker. The glaze has to be cooked over a low heat and only cooked till the butter melts and the sugar dissolves just like the recipe says. The second thing that amazed me was how easily this cake came together. Most recipes for scratch cakes require you to mix ingredients differently like whipping the butter and sugar together, adding the eggs one at a time, then alternately adding the sifted drying gradients with the wet ingredients. I literally dumped everything into my stand mixer bowl and mixed according to the directions. I then thoroughly sprayed my Bundt pan with Baker’s Joy and immediately poured the batter into the pan, no problems with it sticking. Key here is thoroughly spray every inch of the pan and imediately pour the batter in after you have sprayed the pan.
This will be the recipe I use from now on for my butter/poundcake. Absolutely love it.
Thanks for the feedback!!!
Made it today. Did not have success. Almost threw it across the room.
I just made this cake a couple of hours ago while wearing a bathing suit. It’s really hot here today and the pool is beckoning. I love anything orangy. So I replaced the vanilla extract by orange extract, added the zest and juice of one orange to the cake batter and replaced the water and vanilla for the glaze by orange juice and extract. I also added the zest of one orange to the glaze. While the cake was baking, I was in the pool…Ahhh bliss. The glazed cake smells amazing and is cooling. It’s so easy to make, less than 15 mins and it was in the oven and the dishes washed. I can’t wait to try a piece. Five out of five stars for this recipe!!!!
I just removed my cooled cake from the Bundt pan, but there is no sugary crust. It just looks like a regular pound cake. Was I suppose to pour glaze on after I removed it from the pan?
The glaze is mostly on the bottom and a little on the sides. The glaze doesn’t generally sink all the way to the bottom of the pan. That why I dust mine with a little powdered sugar to make it extra pretty!