This layered Cinnamon Cake is moist and soft with wonderful flavor! We've paired it with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Keep this delicious recipe in mind for birthdays, holidays, showers, and more!

Cinnamon Cake, sliced, on cake pedestal.

Table of Contents

Ingredients for Cinnamon Cake

Here is a quick look at the key ingredients for our cake layers. You'll find the complete listing and amounts (as well as frosting details) at the bottom of this post!

Cream Cheese: We use one block of cream cheese in the cake batter (full fat). This adds wonderful texture and richness. We often refer to our cakes with cream cheese in the cake batter as "velvet cakes" for their soft texture (white velvet cake, orange velvet cake, lemon velvet cake and more).
Unsalted Butter: We use unsalted butter in our cakes so that we have more control over the amount of salt in our recipes. (If using salted butter, you can omit the salt from the recipe).
Sugar & Eggs
Cake Flour: We often use cake flour in our recipes as it has a lower protein content and makes for a softer, more tender cake.
Baking Powder, Baking Soda, and Salt
Ground Cinnamon: We use a tablespoon in our cake batter for great cinnamon flavor.
Buttermilk: The boost of acidity from buttermilk breaks down the strands of gluten and protein in the cake batter which results in a softer cake. (We use whole buttermilk).
Vegetable Oil: We use a bit of canola oil for an added boost of moisture to the cake.
Vanilla Extract

How to Make Cinnamon Cake

You can find the full, printable recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour three 8 inch pans, adding a circle of parchment or wax paper to the bottom of each pan.
Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
In another bowl, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. Set aside.
In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and cream cheese and mix at medium speed until smooth.
Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 2-3 minutes.
Add the room temperature 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 buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet)
Mix the batter just until well combined- be careful not to over-mix. Divide the batter between the three pans.
Bake at 325 degrees F for 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans on a wire rack before turning out.
This recipe makes 7 ½ cups of batter. Works for cupcakes also (although there will be little to no dome).

Decorating the Cake

We filled and frosted today's cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. This simple recipe is a combination of cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and pinch of salt, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. You'll have plenty of frosting for borders and decorative piping.

Place first cake layer on cake plate or pedestal. Spread the top with buttercream and repeat for the next two cake layers.

Fill in any gaps between the stacked cake layers with buttercream and apply the crumb coat (thin coat) of frosting. At this point, I like to chill my crumb coated cake in the freezer for 10-15 minutes (or longer in the refrigerator) until the frosting has firmed up. This is optional, but I find it helpful to decorate a chilled cake.
Next, apply the second coat of frosting. Decorate however you'd like! I made the frosting fairly smooth before going back in and adding texture with a small rounded offset spatula.

Adding texture to cake with a small rounded spatula.

I finished things off with a bit of piping on top (8B or similar), and a light sprinkling of cinnamon (I tapped it through a fine mesh sifter for this).