It’s one of my favorite things to experiment with new flavors and recipes, especially when it comes to cakes. When people think of layer cakes they usually think of white, yellow, and/or chocolate. Sometimes carrot or lemon come to mind. There are so many great recipes out there for different cakes. This past February I made a Cherry Layer Cake and it was simply incredible! AND of course, this particular cake here, Toasted Butter Pecan, well… let’s just say if you’re a fan of pecans, you won’t be disappointed.
What gives this cake that signature “Butter Pecan” flavor is toasting the pecans in a skillet with some melted butter. It smells AMAZING! Just like the ice cream. That is the very first step to this cake since you want to set your pecans aside to cool. It’s vital that you do this or else you may create cooked portions of cake batter upon adding hot nuts. Not ideal.
The cake batter itself seems to be based off the old-fashioned 1-2-3-4 cake (1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, and 4 eggs). That is if you don’t count the extra 1/4 cup of butter used to toast the nuts. I’ve never made a 1-2-3-4 cake before. I wasn’t completely impressed with it, but I didn’t think it was bad (kind of dry). I will say though, if you have a favorite white or yellow cake recipe, you should use that instead (this is mine) and then follow the same step for making the toasted butter pecans, add them in, and absolutely use this frosting recipe. If you want to use your own 2 layer recipe instead of a 3, then you’ll need to use less pecans, maybe just 1 1/4 cups would be perfect.
I really thought this cake was just lovely. Just so old-fashioned in nature, I was completely impressed. I chose to keep it simple with the decoration. I am not big on fancy piping of cakes, simply because I haven’t done it enough to be any good at it. So I decided to press finely chopped pecans into the side of the cake and then just fluff and swirl the top of the cake with a small offset spatula to give it a pretty appearance.
Oh and before I forget to mention- the frosting. If you like to have plenty of frosting when frosting your cake, you may want to use 1 1/2 times the given recipe. I had just enough for the 3 layers with this cake. It made me a little nervous. If you decide to make your own 2 layer cake recipe, then you will have plenty, but for the 3 layer I highly recommend making more frosting especially if you are planing on piping. And I should also mention that the frosting recipe is SOOOOO delicious! : D
- 1¼ cup butter, softened, divided
- 2 cups chopped pecans
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup milk
- FROSTING:
- 2 pkgs (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 pkg (2 lbs) confectioners’ sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 to 3 Tb milk, as necessary
- extra chopped pecans for garnish, optional
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour three 9″ round cake pans.
- In a medium heavy skillet, melt ¼ butter over medium heat. Add pecans; cook until toasted and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Spread across sheet of foil to cool.
- In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine; set aside.
- In a separate large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
- Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the flour (flour in 3 parts, milk in 2). Fold in toasted pecans.
- Divide between cake pans and bake 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack before removing from pans. Cool completely.
- FOR FROSTING: In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla. Beat in enough milk, as necessary, to achieve spreading consistency. Frost cake. Store in refrigerator.
{ 56 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow I tried licking the screen but I got nothing, the frosting is what’s doing it for me it looks incredible! I have never been able to bake cakes to this standard but I certainly enjoy eating them!
Thanks Sarah! It really was quite delicious : )
I love cake and butter pecan ice cream, so um, yaaaa, I want some of this!
I found this via Pinterest, and it looks SO good! Butter pecan ice cream is my favorite…will definitely be trying this cake…with a scoop of ice cream on the side!
OH LARDY! This looks so divine! I could just imagine my spoon going down into it with a scoop of Butter Pecan ice cream on the side. Oh Yeah! Gotta try this one REAL soon!
I noticed you used all purpose flour…..have you tried the cake flour (which is a lighter)
Not for this recipe I haven’t, but honestly I prefer the texture from all purpose flour with cakes. I feel like the crumb is too tight with cake flour. That’s just my personal preference though.
Do you think this recipe would translate to cupcakes ok?
Sure, I don’t see why not : )
I made this for my father’s birthday party! Big hit. My only thing would be that if you are wanting a larger cake just make sure that you make the three tiers instead of 2, because I didn’t feel like I was going to have enough batter, so the cakes are on the smaller side. I don’t think that 2 would have been big enough for my large family. If you have a higher cake you can serve smaller slices. Also, I did make the extra frosting so I could ensure that I wouldn’t have to go light on frosting. The cake is so moist, and everyone was so impressed that it was all homemade! It took exactly 25 minutes for the cakes just like the recipe called for. Great recipe. Thanks!
This may be a silly question but do I put the whole cake in the fridge?
For storing, the cake will last much longer if you refrigerate the entire thing and then let slices come up to room temperature (about 2 hours) before serving them. Or of course, if you plan on eating the whole cake, take the whole cake out and let it come to room temperature (3 or 4 hours).
Hi! I am excited to try this. Butter Pecan is my dad’s favorite ice cream, so I’m sure he will love this! I am just curious about your method of attaching all those pecans on the side. I’m envisioning myself taking a handful at a time and just chunking them at the cake. I think that might make a mess though.
haha That’s a really good question- I put some parchment strips along the bottom of the cake, then frosted it, then immediately started pressing chopped pecans on the side before the frosting started to harden at all. It was actually a it tricky- I just tilted the cake ever so slightly, took handfuls and pressed them on the side. Afterwards I had a nice pile along the bottom that didn’t stick that I had to pick up but it worked pretty well as long as you keep at it. At one point I was so frustrated I started to kind of throw them at the sides haha but that didn’t work so well…
lol! Thanks!
I made this cake and was a little disappointed in it. The cake just seemed too dry. Maybe I did something wrong?!? :/
The frosting however, was divine!!!
I felt the same way about the cake layers themselves, that’s why I wrote that you should use a favorite white/yellow cake recipe in place of it if you had one. Maybe I’ll write it within a note on the recipe card instead of just the post. Sorry about the disappointing results.
Adding a couple TBL of vegetable oil should help the cake. I guess people used to like cakes “drier,” the “old” recipes don’t have enough fat in them for a moist cake like everyone likes today. I add at least 2 TBL of veg oil to any recipe that only uses butter and milk as the fat sources.
That is interesting! What a good idea, I will have to try it some time.
Same here! Thought I over cooked it. Add Vanilla ice cream and that helped! The frosting was fantastic!!
This recipe is to die for! I tried it out and it was a huge hit! Thank you so much for posting the recipe!
I hope you don’t mind but I did a write up on it and have placed it under my Surreal Approved Recipes!
http://www.surrealconfections.com/2012/07/national-ice-cream-day.html
As well as placing it on my Tested Recipe Pinterest Board – https://pinterest.com/jenng79/tested-recipes/
Feel free to use this image if you would like and thanks again for posting!!!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zdJdFZjGPSk/UANo9p_S_jI/AAAAAAAABPo/7lmAxRafwJQ/s320/approval.png
The cake was a hit! My husband loved it. It had a great taste but it was a little dry. Thank you for sharing. I will still make it again!!
I made this cake last weekend and it was absolutely perfect. I toasted 4 cups of pecans in butter, mixing half into the cake and pressing the rest either into the side or sprinkled on top. It tastes just like butter pecan ice cream – only in a cake! And mine turned out very lucsiouly moist too, perfect texture. I added the extra butter and vanilla for the frosting, but decided it was already sweet enough with one whole bag of powdered sugar, so I didn’t include the extra 2 cups. Maybe that extra butter in the frosting is what helped seal the moisture into my cake. I give it two huge thumbs up!
Now, how many hours of exercise do I need to do before I may be allowed to make it again?!?!
Thanks for my additional cellulite!!;) all I can say is YUM YUM!!
Do you think this would work with a boxed cake mix?
Yes, absolutely!
I love butter pecan ice cream, so I can’t wait to make this one! Looks wonderful
Laura this cake is gorgeous! I just pinned it (so I can also remember to put it on my to-make list!) I love buttery cakes like this one and thanks for the link to your fave white cake recipe.
You’re welcome! I hope you enjoy it : )
Hi, i was so inspired by this recipe. But it really didnt come out nice! I got away with amazing decoration but the cake itself was very dry, and compact. I used my regular flop proof sponge cake recipe and added the pecans. but it wasnt good at all!
didnt even enjoy the frosting.
any ideas why it didnt come out right?
I have noooo idea… especially since you used a cake recipe that you find dependable. The cake recipe provided is a little dry, that’s why i suggest using one you enjoy. So, if that was one that usually works, I don’t know why it wouldn’t this time. Adding nuts doesn’t change the texture of a baked cake. Unless you used the full amount of nuts (made for a 3 layer cake) for a 2 layer cake, that may make it a little nut dense. And as far as the frosting, I don’t know what to tell you- it’s a very standard cream cheese frosting recipe.
I absolutely love this recipe!! I tried it with the favorite white cake you suggested and it came out perfect!!
I am attempting to make a cupcake version and am wondering how would you recommend storing the cupcakes so they dont dry out if I were baking them the night before?
Thanks again for the amazing recipe!!!
I am SO happy to hear that!! I would just frost the cupcakes as you normally would and then just store them, covered air tight, in the refrigerator. About two hours or more before you plan on serving them, take them out and let them come to room temperature.
I used cake flour and it made 24 wonderful cup cakes.
So glad to hear that Amber!
Hi Laura,
The cake looks so scrumptious! I was looking over the ingredients, and sort of wondered if you had tried swapping the cup of milk for a cup of sour cream?
I dont recall where I had read about the sour cream trick, but was wondering if you had ever tried that instead, and if you had – did it improve the moistness of the cake?
Im eager to try your recipes – im debating to use your white cake recipe or try this original version
I have not tried that myself, but I would be interested to see if it worked… let me know if you test it out!
I made this for Thanksgiving this year. I am still picking confetti out of my hair.
I tried this out because it looked so good, and I received a kitchen-aid mixer for my birthday! I loved it, and it came out perfect, just like it was supposed to, even the frosting. I found the cake to be just a tad dry, but my “official” cake tester said he loved it and the frosting kept it from being dry. I went a little light on the frosting, and also only did a two layer – even though I used two cups of pecans. It smelled devine and tasted as good! Thanks for sharing!
Goodness..Im five months prego and even my baby started kicking after me seeing this one. This cake looks tastylicious!!! Will be making it!!! Thank you so much for sharing this!!
First–I want to say I found the frosting to be PLENTY even for a three layer cake. I didn’t put a whole lot in between layers because I was nervous because of people’s comments, but I put a very thick layer around outside (even thicker than I normally would) and had about 1/2 cup frosting left over.
I made the cake with two alterations. I added about 2 tbs of olive oil after mixing in the eggs and I used whipping cream instead of milk. It came out WONDERFULLY moist.
Great recipe, delicious cake!!!
PS, made it with fresh gather pecans–yumm-o!
This cake was really tasty. I made it for my husband’s birthday party. Everyone loved it. The cake itself was a little dry but no one seemed to mind. I think I will use a different layer recipe and add butter flavoring instead of vanilla.
The pecans 1.5-2 cups are poured into the finished batter?
Yes, you mix them into the cake batter and they are baked into the cake.
I was so looking forward to making this cake, but I’m kind of disappointed with the result! As you warned us about, the cake did come out a bit dry…but mine also came out quite flat, barely two layers. Not sure what happened! Delicious frosting though.
I noticed you said the cake was a little dry and I was wondering if you had any tips or tricks to make the cake moister?
If I was going to tweak this particular cake recipe, I would just use less flour maybe. Or maybe 1/4 cup extra milk… but to play it safe I would just use a favorite white cake recipe or yellow cake recipe.
Incredible! May I share the photo and recipe on my facebook page, with credit and link to your blog post? I tried to share via the share button and it wouldn’t show a thumbnail photo, for some reason.
Of course! I would love that- thank you!
THIS CAKE IS NOT DRY AT ALL…IT IS DELICIOUS….MAKE ONLY 2 LAYERS ….USE TWO FULL STICKS OF BUTTER AND A LITTLE MORE MILK..
I am so happy that you didn’t have any problems with the recipe- I bet adding more milk probably helped. Good idea!
I JUST baked this cake tonight for my husband and I & I may say it was DELICIOUS! Perfectly sweetened & the cake wasn’t too dry at all! Definitely will use this recipe in the future. Thank You
SO happy your cake wasn’t dry! There is nothing worse than that- especially when you put all that effort into making a nice layer cake.
This is an all time family favorite. We know it as Italian Wedding Cake. Absolutely Divine. Always a party pleaser throught the years cannot have a family gathering without one for over 30 years.
Have everything to make this cake!! Can not wait to try it!! Going to use a little whipping cream and see how the batter looks
Hope and pray its moist!! thanx for posting!
Just finished the cake and found it to be sort of plain, I was really hoping for the butter pecan flavor. Didnt think it was dry
Frosting to me too was just basic but the toasted pecans were nice 
Thanx for posting! enjoyed making it
{ 4 trackbacks }