Butterscotch Cake

This homemade Butterscotch Cake is so moist and delicious with wonderful butterscotch flavor.

The dessert consists of three fluffy butterscotch cake layers with a light and luscious butterscotch cream filling and classic cream cheese frosting. If you love cake mix recipes, we have a great Butterscotch Cake from cake mix as well!

How to Make Butterscotch Cake 

You can find the full Butterscotch Layer Cake Recipe in our Recipe Card at the bottom of this post! Here is a quick rundown of our steps: 

What gives this moist Butterscotch Cake so much flavor is the melted butterscotch (combined with a small amount of oil) that we've added to the batter. 

1. Preheat: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
2. Prepare the Cake Pans: Grease and flour three 8x2 inch round pans,  you could also use two 9 inch round pans
3. Flour Mixture: In a medium size bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds.  Set aside.
4. Milk Mixture: In a measuring cup add the milk, 1 Tablespoon oil and 1 Tablespoon vanilla.  Set aside.
5. Butter and Sugar: In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and mix at medium speed until smooth.  Gradually add the brown sugar and mix  for 3 to 5 minutes until well blended and lightened in color.
6. Butterscotch: Mix in ½ cup of the melted butterscotch morsels (as described above) 
7. Eggs: Add the room temperature eggs one at a time mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk is blended.
8. Adding Dry and Wet Ingredients: With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture,  beginning and ending with the  dry ingredients - 3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of wet ingredients.  
9. Time to Bake! Bake at 325 degrees for 22 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.  Allow the cake layers to cool in the cake pans for 5 to 10 minutes and turn out.

Assembling and Decorating

We filled our cake with a delicious Butterscotch Cream Filling, which can be easily whipped up using instant pudding and heavy cream. We've used many flavor variations in our cakes over the years, including our easy chocolate mousse cake, banana pudding cake, orange dreamsicle cake, and easy Boston Cream Pie.

After filling the cake layers, we frosted around the sides with Cream Cheese Frosting. We only needed a half-batch since we were not using the frosting on top of the cake or in the filling.

I added texture to the sides of the cake using a small rounded offset spatula which I applied to the frosting as I rotated it on the turntable. (See our ridged buttercream effect for more details).

Next, we used a french tip to pipe stars of Butterscotch Cream over the top of the cake. I finished things off with a small piped bead border using a Tip 3 as well as a few matching sprinkles around the top edge of the cake.

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Butterscotch Cake

BY Melissa and Bebe

This moist Butterscotch Cake has so much flavor! We've paired it with an easy and deliciously light Butterscotch Cream Filling as well as Cream Cheese Frosting for a dessert that is sure to please!

Course: Dessert

Servings: 9

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (170g)
• ▢ 1 ½ cups light brown sugar (320g)
• ▢ 3 Large Eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
• ▢ 3 cups cake flour (342g)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons Baking Powder (8g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon Baking Soda (3g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon Salt (3g)
• ▢ 1 cup Milk (242g)
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil (8g) We use canola oil.
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (12g)

For the Melted Butterscotch to be poured into the batter

• ▢ ½ cup Butterscotch Chips, melted (see method below) (156g)
• ▢ 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil (16g) ( use for melted butterscotch )

For the Butterscotch Cream Filling

• ▢ 1 small box instant Butterscotch Pudding (3.9 oz/96g) We used Jello- Brand
• ▢ 2 cups heavy cream or whipping cream (stir in a little more if recipe is too thick) (464g)

For the Cream Cheese Frosting (This is a half batch of our usual Cream Cheese Frosting)

• ▢ 1 stick unsalted butter, softened (112g) Not overly soft, but soft enough to easily dent when pressed.
• ▢ 8 oz cream cheese, softened 8 oz 226g cream cheese, slightly softened
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt
• ▢ 3 to 3 ½ cups powdered sugar (345-402g)

Instructions

For the Melted Butterscotch Morsels (which will be added to the batter)

• *You will need only ½ cup of the melted butterscotch. (There may be about 2 Tablespoons leftover)
• Add 1 cup (156g) butterscotch chips and 2 Tablespoons oil to a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 20 seconds, remove and let sit for a minute, stir, another 10 seconds, let sit and stir, and a final 10 seconds.
• Stir until the chips are completely melted. It may take a bit of stirring. Be careful not to over microwave, the chips can burn easily.

For the Butterscotch Cake

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
• Grease and flour three 8x2 inch round pans,  you could also use two 9 inch round pans.
• In a medium size bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds.  Set aside.
• In a measuring cup add the milk, 1 Tablespoon oil and 1 Tablespoon vanilla.  Set aside.
• In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and mix at medium speed until smooth.  Gradually add the brown sugar and mix  for 3 to 5 minutes until well blended and lightened in color.
• Mix in ½ cup of the melted butterscotch morsels (as described above) 
• Add the eggs one at a time mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
• With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture,  beginning and ending with the  flour mixture - (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of wet ingredients).  
• Bake at 325 degrees for 22 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.  Let cool 5 to 10 minutes and turn out.

For the Butterscotch Cream Filling

• Combine the pudding mix and heavy cream in a mixing bowl. I prefer to mix with a hand held mixer, but a whisk is just fine too. If using a 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.
• If mixing by hand, simply whisk rapidly for a couple of minutes or until mixture is nice and thick.
• Refrigerate until ready to use. Cakes with this filling should be chilled until close to serving time.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• Cut the butter into slices and add to the bowl of your mixer, mix on low to medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.
• Cut the cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, mixing at low to medium speed  until incorporated.  If you are using a hand mixer, you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit longer.
• Add the vanilla.  Gradually add the powdered sugar beating on low speed until blended.  Don't over mix or it will become too soft.  If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate a short while to firm it up a bit.
• This frosting is perishable and will need refrigeration.  

Assembly of the Butterscotch Cake

• Place the first butterscotch cake layer onto your cake base or cake pedestal. Spread with the Butterscotch Cream Filling--
• ( I did not pipe a dam of frosting around each cake layer (to keep the filling from escaping). The filling is thick enough that I simply spread the filling up to about ¼-1/2 inch from the edge of each cake layer so that the filling would not escape during the stacking process.)
• Frost around the sides of the cake with the cream cheese frosting, and top the cake off with piped butterscotch cream. (I used a french piping tip but any large star piping tip will give you a similar effect!)
  

Notes

• Substitution for cake flour - Measure out 3 cups all purpose flour  (plain flour in UK) remove 6 Tablespoons (21g) and replace with 6 Tablespoons (21g) cornstarch (cornflour in UK) Whisk to blend
• I used Canola Oil for the vegetable oil
• Recipe makes 6 cups batter
• If making standard size cupcakes, Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes

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