Butterscotch Cake {Cake Mix Recipe}

This incredibly moist and soft Butterscotch Cake from Cake Mix is bursting with butterscotch flavor, and it is so simple to make.

We love scratch cakes as well as doctored cake mix recipes, and today's butterscotch doctored cake mix recipe is a keeper!

(If you prefer cake recipes from scratch, don't miss our Scratch Butterscotch Cake).

In this delicious dessert, moist butterscotch cake layers are filled with a light butterscotch cream filling and frosted with cream cheese frosting.

It is SO good, we hope that you enjoy it!

Key Ingredients for the Easy Butterscotch Cake

This cake starts with a box of yellow cake mix, with the usual ingredients added plus sour cream, a bit of all purpose flour, butterscotch instant pudding, and melted butterscotch chips.

These additional ingredients not only enhance the texture of the cake and give it a wonderful butterscotch flavor, but they also extend this one-box recipe into a three layer cake.

Here are some of the key players for our butterscotch cake!

You can find our full, printable butterscotch cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!

How to Make Butterscotch Cake from Cake Mix

Let's start with the cake layers:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees,  Grease and flour three (8x2 inch) round cake pans. We like to also put a circle of parchment (or waxed paper) into the bottom of each pan to ensure that nothing sticks.
2. Melt the Butterscotch Chips: In a microwave safe bowl, combine ¾ cup butterscotch chips with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and microwave in small increments until melted, stirring in between.

3. Combine Dry Ingredients: In a mixing bowl, combine the yellow cake mix, all purpose flour, and instant butterscotch pudding mix.  Whisk to blend. 
4. Combine Wet Ingredients: Add the eggs, sour cream, milk, ¼ cup vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and melted butterscotch. 
5. Time to Mix: Mix on low speed to blend increasing to medium speed for 1 minute.  Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with rubber spatula and mix another minute.  

6. Fill the Pans: Divide the batter between the three prepared pans.  (Makes approximately 6 cups of batter). It doesn't look like much cake batter in each pan but they bake up nice and fluffy.

7. Bake at 325 degrees for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. It should also spring back when lightly pressed with your finger.

Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before turning the butterscotch layers out of the pans. Make sure that the layers are completely cool before assembling and decorating the cake.

For the Easy Butterscotch Cream Filling

This easy cream filling is a simple combination of heavy cream and butterscotch instant pudding. It has a light, fluffy consistency and is perfect for layer cakes and cupcakes!

We have used many different flavor variations of this recipe, including the filling in our Chocolate Caramel Cake, Baileys Irish Cream Cake, and Chocolate Caramel Cake.

This butterscotch cream filling gives our cake the perfect additional boost of butterscotch flavor without adding a lot of sweetness.

1. Chill a mixing bowl and beaters in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes.
2. Sift the pudding mix (this helps to eliminate any little sugar granules that are more difficult to dissolve when mixing.)
3. Combine the pudding mix and heavy cream the chilled bowl. I prefer to mix with a hand mixer but whisking by hand works also!
4. If using a hand mixer, start on low speed until well combined. Then, switch to high speed and whip the pudding until thick and fluffy.
5. If butterscotch mousse/cream is too thick, mix in small amounts of heavy cream to reach desired consistency.

Other Variations: A few of more variations of cream fillings (with pudding) are Orange Cream Filling (from our Orange Dreamsicle Cake), Easy Chocolate Mousse Filling, and the Pineapple & Cream Filling as used in our Pineapple Cake Recipe!

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

We love cream cheese frostings- they are super creamy, not overly sweet, easy to make, and have a wonderful hint of tanginess that perfectly balances the sweetness of our cakes.

It is a simple combination of softened cream cheese, vanilla, confectioners sugar, and a pinch of salt.

These are softer frostings that American Buttercream recipes like our classic vanilla buttercream. We often chill the cream cheese frosting just after making to firm it up before decorating with it.

Cake Assembly

• Place the first cake layer on your cake plate or pedestal. I like to pipe a dam with my cream cheese frosting about ½ inch from the edge of the cake, using a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away.

• Then, spread the butterscotch cream filling within the dam.

• Place second cake layer on top and repeat the above steps. Top with third cake layer.

• Fill in any remaining gaps between the cake layers with the cream cheese frosting and then crumb coat. I like to chill the cake at this point in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm things up.

• Refrigerate the bowl or piping bag of cream cheese frosting as needed to firm things up as well.

Decorating the Cake

• Decorate the cake however you like! We frosted the chilled cake with a second layer of frosting, and then used a cake comb around the sides.

• I piped a top border using the remaining butterscotch cream filling using a 1M large star piping tip. I also added a bit of texture to the top of the cake using a small offset spatula. (See our Star Tip Piping video for more details about working with star tips!)

• Press butterscotch chips (or crushed butterscotch chips if you prefer) around the base of the cake.

• You may be happier with leaving the chips whole-- I wanted smaller pieces of butterscotch but the color isn't quite as consistent after crushing. I'm still happy with it though for a quick and easy border!

Here's a peek at the inside!

Recipe FAQs

More Cake Mix Recipes to Try

If you love working with doctored cake mixes, we have a few more recipes to share with you! You can find all of our favorite cake, frosting, and filling recipes in our Recipes Section!

Some of our favorites (aside from today's recipe) are our easy strawberry cake from a mix, candy bar cake, cherry cake from cake mix, and easy apple bundt cake!

If you are looking for easy cupcake recipes based on cake mix, don't miss our banana pudding cupcakes and strawberry cupcakes! You can find them all in our cupcake recipes section.

Butterscotch Cake (Doctored Cake Mix Recipe)

BY Melissa and Bebe

This moist Butterscotch Cake with Butterscotch Cream Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting has amazing flavor and it all starts with a simple cake mix!

Course: Dessert

Servings: 15

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 (15.25oz) Yellow Cake Mix ( I used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Cake Mix)
• ▢ ⅓ cup (40g) all purpose flour (If not using a digital scale, gently spoon into measuring cup and level off with a table knife)
• ▢ 1 (3.9 oz) small box Jello Instant Butterscotch Pudding. Use the dry pudding- we are not preparing the pudding.
• ▢ 4 large eggs
• ▢ 1 cup (242g) sour cream
• ▢ ½ cup (121g) milk (or water)
• ▢ ¼ cup (54g) vegetable oil (we use canola oil)
• ▢ ¾ cup (115g) Butterscotch Chips + 2 (16g) Tablespoons Vegetable Oil (Combine and melt. See instructions below)-- Once melted, it is just under ½ cup (4oz) of butterscotch/oil mixture.)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract

For the Butterscotch Cream Filling

• ▢ 1 (3.9 oz) small box Instant Butterscotch Pudding (We used Jell-O brand)
• ▢ 2 cups (464g) heavy cream or whipping cream (stir in a little more if recipe is too thick)

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• ▢ 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
• ▢ 16 oz Cream cheese (total weight 452g). We used two 8 oz packages of full-fat cream cheese.
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
• ▢ 6 to 6 ½ cups (690g to 747g) confectioners sugar

Instructions

• For the Butterscotch Layers
• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees,  Grease and flour three (8x2 inch) round cake pans. We like to also put a circle of parchment (or waxed paper) into the bottom of each pan to ensure that nothing sticks.
• In a microwave safe bowl, combine the ¾ cup butterscotch chips with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and microwave in 20 second increments or less, stirring in between until almost completely melted. Then stir until the remaining bits of butterscotch have disappeared. It shouldn't be very hot when adding to cake batter.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients: yellow cake mix, flour, and butterscotch pudding mix.  Whisk to blend.  Add the eggs, sour cream, milk, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and melted butterscotch. 
• Mix on low speed to blend increasing to medium speed for 1 minute.  Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix another minute.  The melted butterscotch gives the batter a somewhat heavy consistency but don't worry- cake will be light and fluffy.
• Divide the batter among the three prepared pans.  (Makes approximately 6 cups of batter). It doesn't look like much in the pan but they bake up nice and fluffy.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. It should also spring back when lightly pressed with your finger.
• Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before turning out.

For the Butterscotch Cream Filling

• We prefer to sift the pudding mix first as sometimes there are sugar crystals that don't fully dissolve. Chill a mixing bowl and beaters in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes. Combine the pudding mix and heavy cream the chilled bowl. I prefer to mix with a hand held mixer, but a whisk is just fine too.
• If using a hand mixer, start on low speed until well combined. Then, switch to high speed and whip the pudding until thick and fluffy.
• If butterscotch mousse/cream is too thick, mix in small amounts of heavy cream to reach desired consistency.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• Cut the butter into slices and add to the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low to medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.
• Cut the cold cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, beating at low to medium speed until incorporated. If you are using a hand mixer you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit more.
• Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar beating on low speed until blended. Cover the bowl with a towel to keep down the cloud of powdered sugar.
• Increase mixing speed and beat until fluffy. Don't over beat or it will become too soft. If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate a short while to firm it up a bit.
• This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix.

Cake Assembly

• Place the first cooled cake layer on your cake plate or pedestal. I like to pipe a dam with my cream cheese frosting about ½ inch from the edge of the cake, using a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away. Then, spread the butterscotch cream filling within the dam.
• Place second cake layer on top and repeat the above steps. Top with third cake layer.
• Fill in any remaining gaps between the cake layers with the cream cheese frosting and then crumb coat. I like to chill the cake at this point in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm things up. (Refrigerate the bowl or piping bag of cream cheese frosting as needed to firm things up as well).
• Frost the second coat of frosting. We used a cake come to add decoration. I piped a top border using the remaining butterscotch cream filling using a 1M large star piping tip.
• Press butterscotch chips (or crushed butterscotch chips if you prefer) around the base of the cake.
  

Notes

This recipe works well for cupcakes also.

The cake should be refrigerated because of the cream filling and cream cheese frosting. Remove from the refrigerator about 2-3 hours before serving for best flavor and texture.

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