Kentucky Butter Cake is an insanely moist pound cake with a sweet, buttery sauce that soaks through the cake. This cake tastes even better the next day!
Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe
This Kentucky Butter Cake isn’t overly sweet and has plenty of butter flavor. It is the perfect cake to snack on while sipping a cup of coffee or tea. This is a typical pound cake type recipe with a dense texture, but not too dense. It’s easy to make from ingredients you likely have on hand.
All the ingredients get mixed together using a stand mixer, then the batter is poured into a Bundt pan and baked for about an hour.
While it’s still warm, you poke holes in the cake and let a delicious butter sauce seep down into the cake. The outside gets a little buttery and crispy and the inside is so buttery and moist.
★★★★★
What readers are saying!
Perfect! Made it for a country fair culinary contest and won not only first prize, but grand champion..
How To Store
This cake can be stored at room temperature for 4 to 5 days. Kentucky Butter Cake freezes really well. Just wrap it well in plastic wrap and then in foil.
You’ll like this cake so much, you’ll be making an excuse to eat it first thing in the morning for breakfast. And it probably doesn’t need to be said, but this cake makes a wonderful dessert for a Kentucky Derby Party.
If you are a fan of bourbon, check out this Kentucky Bourbon Butter Cake. It’s another amazing butter cake recipe.
More Kentucky Inspired Recipes
- Bourbon Balls
- Kentucky Derby Bars
- Kentucky Blackberry Jam Cake
- Kentucky Chocolate Walnut Pie
- Mint Julep Cupcakes
Watch the short video below to see how easy this cake is to make!
Kentucky Butter Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup butter
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Butter Sauce
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a Bundt pan or use baking spray with flour.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
- Using an electric stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes.
- Mix in eggs one at a time.
- Add the vanilla to the buttermilk.
- Add flour mixture to butter mixture., alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
- Pour batter into Bundt pan and bake for 60 minutes.
- Make butter sauce when you are getting ready to take cake out of the oven. Bring sugar, water, and butter to a low boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
- After cake is removed from oven, poke holes in the top and pour the butter mixture down into holes. Let cake cool for about 10 minutes and then remove from pan. Don’t let it cool much longer before removing from pan or it will stick.
Notes
Nutrition
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Recipe Source: AllRecipes.com
Originally posted February 26, 2018.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links.
Great cake! I make it exactly as written but sometimes I’m in the mood for a lemon butter cake. I add 2 tsp of lemon
Extract and zest from 2 lemons. It a delicious cake either way!
Fantastic!!! So easy and delicious. Would not change a thing!
Sounds delish making for super bowl.
I love this recipe it’s absolutely delicious. I will definitely make it again
My go-to recipe for pound cake. My husband loves it, and requests it often!
This is my family’s favorite cake. I make it often. Soooooo yummy.
Man! I grew up in Kentucky but had never heard of this cake. I wanted to make a cake without icing last night and thought I’d give this recipe a try. HOLY COW! It was phenomenal! Thanks for such an easy and awesome recipe. I didn’t have any buttermilk so subbed 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup milk mixed. Worked out perfectly. Thanks again!
Just made this cake for the first time today using this recipe. It came out great!
Just put in oven. Kind of worried about getting cake out of pan after butter sauce is put over cake?will take pic when all is done
Great! Clear and concise directions! Cake came out perfect!
Absolutely a phenomenal cake. Easy to follow instructions. I made it for a family birthday dinner. It was definitely a hit. There was not a single crumb leftover.
This cake is AMAZING! It is a go to for all my friends!
This was the worse cake….and I followed the recipe to a tee. Dry, bland…sorry this cake was a epic fail for me.
A can’t miss recipe. I’ve made it several times and never a crumb left. You can cut the topping recipe in half and still have plenty.
Perfect! Made it for a country fair culinary contest and won not only first prize, but grand champion..
Yay!
Recipe only states butter, not unsalted ( which I see you indicated in a reply post). I just put cake in oven but used regular butter.
What size pan should the bundt pan be, 10 or 12 cups?
Made this and took it to work. People were going back for seconds which is pretty unusual. Everyone loved it. My oven is a challenge to use but I was really pleased with how it turned out. Great recipe!
Can this be made into a chocolate swirl cake or just a chocolate version??
This cake is delicious! You really need a thick stick to poke even holes like a fat chopstick so the sauce soaks in evenly but its good some of the sauce soaks into the outside crust. I sprayed the pan pretty heavily with Baker’s Joy and the cake came out perfect. Thank you for this recipe!
I’m a single guy who loves to cook but never learned the ins/outs of baking. The 1st time I tried making KBC, I apparently miss measured or just read the recipe wrong. Near the end of the baking cycle, with the house filled with this wonderful bakery aroma, I checked the progress of what had to be Manna from the Gods. “The Cake” was oozing well over the top of my bundt pan, forming a golden brown, bell shaped mountain in my oven. With potholders, I grabbed the pan and got it into the kitchen sink.
After a few hours, getting ready to clean up the mess, my girlfriend & I broke off a ‘still in the sink’ piece for a taste. Had friends drop in and they too, pinched off a piece for ‘a … ‘still in the sink’, TASTE’ ….. The entire KBC was gone before morning…. never make it out of the sink or pan… and obviously, before any butter sauce was added.
I’ve been making this cake for years but I always double the sauce that is poured over sauce.