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

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.

Kentucky Butter Cake is a pound cake type cake that is so moist and delicious

★★★★★
What readers are saying!

Perfect! Made it for a country fair culinary contest and won not only first prize, but grand champion..

Kentucky Butter Cake- an old southern favorite

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.

Kentucky Butter Cake with a sweet buttery glaze

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

Kentucky Butter Cake recipe
Watch the short video below to see how easy this cake is to make!


Kentucky Butter Cake

4.94 from 47 votes
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 1 hour
Total: 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings: 16
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!
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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

Chop sticks or a wooden skewer is perfect for poking the holes.
Nutritional info is provided as an estimate only and will vary based on brands of products used. Not to be used for specific dietary needs.

Nutrition

Calories: 412kcal | Carbohydrates: 56g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 19g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 94mg | Sodium: 377mg | Potassium: 70mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 38g | Vitamin A: 624IU | Calcium: 48mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Did you make this?Leave a comment below and tag us @spicysouthernkitchen on social media!

Recipe Source: AllRecipes.com

Originally posted February 26, 2018.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links.

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90 Comments

  1. Jennifer Darby says:

    This cake is AMAZING! It is a go to for all my friends!

  2. Valerie says:

    This was the worse cake….and I followed the recipe to a tee. Dry, bland…sorry this cake was a epic fail for me.

  3. Kathryn Whatley says:

    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.

  4. Cheryl says:

    Perfect! Made it for a country fair culinary contest and won not only first prize, but grand champion..

    1. Christin Mahrlig says:

      Yay!

  5. Phyllis says:

    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.

  6. Maria says:

    What size pan should the bundt pan be, 10 or 12 cups?

  7. Ali B says:

    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!

  8. Mariah says:

    Can this be made into a chocolate swirl cake or just a chocolate version??

  9. statti3 says:

    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 Bakerโ€™s Joy and the cake came out perfect. Thank you for this recipe!

  10. Southern Gentleman says:

    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.

    1. Beth says:

      Iโ€™ve been making this cake for years but I always double the sauce that is poured over sauce.