Eggnog Cake with Eggnog Buttercream
Today we are sharing a delicious scratch recipe for Eggnog Cake with Eggnog Buttercream Frosting! It is the perfect winter cake for the holidays, when our cravings for all things spiced & cozy are in full swing!
This classic holiday cake recipe is moist and rich with a lovely soft texture, and delicious spiced flavor.
Table of Contents
Why we Love It
There are so many reasons to love this Eggnog Cake recipe! Here are just a few:
- Moist, tender cake layers
- Wonderful spiced flavor from cinnamon and nutmeg
- Richness of flavor from the eggnog
- Makes a perfect winter birthday cake recipe, holiday cake, and more!
How to Make Eggnog Cake
You can find the full, printable Eggnog Cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!
- Preheat: Preheat oven to 350 and grease and flour three 8 inch cake pans- we also like to line our pans with parchment.{This recipe uses the Reverse Creaming Method of mixing.}
- Combine Wet Ingredients: In a medium sized bowl, combine the eggs, vanilla, vegetable oil and eggnog. Blend with a fork to combine.
- Combine Dry Ingredients: In the bowl of your mixer add the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon and
nutmeg. - Add Butter to Dry Ingredients: Mix on low speed as you gradually add the pieces of butter. Mix until the dry ingredients
are crumbly and moistened by the butter. - Half of Egg Mixture: Add ½ of the egg mixture and beat on medium speed for 1 ½ minutes, scrape the
bottom and sides of the bowl. - Two More Additions of Egg Mixture: Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 additions, mixing at medium speed for 20 seconds
after each addition. - Fill the Pans: Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and pour into the prepared baking pans.
- Time to Bake! Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Makes 7 ½ cups batter. Works well for cupcakes
Eggnog Buttercream
This Eggnog Buttercream tastes fantastic and is so easy to make! It is a delicious combination of butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, a pinch of salt, and a splash of eggnog.
It behaves much like our Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, but has added richness and flavor from the eggnog and spices!
This eggnog frosting recipe works perfectly as a filling and frosting, and pipes perfectly also.
More Spice Cakes
We love spice cakes, especially in the fall and winter months! In addition to today's Eggnog Cake, you will have to add these other recipes to your must-bake list!
Some of our favorites are our Spice Cake from cake mix, Pumpkin Spice Cake, Cherry Spice Cake, and gingerbread cake.
More Eggnog Cakes
If you prefer working with cake mixes or if you like to keep great doctored cake mix recipes on hand for a super quick and easy dessert, you've got to try our Eggnog Cake (doctored cake mix) Recipe!
It has all of the wonderful spiced flavor of our scratch eggnog cake recipe, and can be whipped up in no time. We also have an Eggnog Rum Cake from cake mix that couldn't be simpler to make- so decadent!
Don't miss our delicious Eggnog Pound Cake and Caramel Eggnog Pound Cake recipes as well! These simple scratch pound cakes are so flavorful and can be whipped up in no time.
Make sure to check out our other holiday cake recipes! You'll find favorites like our scratch Red Velvet Cake ,Italian Cream Cake, Carrot Cake and German Chocolate Cake!
Thanks so much for stopping by today, we hope that you enjoy this homemade Eggnog Cake! Make sure to check out our full Cake Recipes section as well as our collection of free Cake Decorating Tutorials!
If you are interested in Christmas and winter cake designs, we have lots of decorating tutorials to share with you!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Eggnog Cake with Eggnog Buttercream- A Scratch Recipe
Ingredients
For the Eggnog Cake Layers•
- *Preheat oven to 350. Grease & flour three 8 inch pans.
- 3 cups (342g) cake flour **(if you do not have cake flour, see below)
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon (15g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
- 2 teaspoons (6g) cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon (3g) nutmeg
- 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, slightly softened (should hold shape but dent when pressed)
- 3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (54g) vegetable oil
- 1 ¼ cups (313g) eggnog
For the Eggnog Buttercream Frosting
- 2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, softened
- 6-7 cups (690-805g) powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon (1g) cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon (2g) salt
- ⅓ cup (86g) eggnog - add more a teaspoon at a time if needed.
- 2 teaspoons 8g vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Eggnog Cake Layers
- {This recipe uses the Reverse Creaming Method of mixing.}
- In a medium sized bowl, combine the eggs, vanilla, vegetable oil and eggnog. Blend with a fork to combine.
- In the bowl of your mixer add the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon and
nutmeg. - Mix on low speed as you gradually add the pieces of butter. Mix until the dry ingredients
are crumbly and moistened by the butter. - There should be no dry looking flour in the bowl. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl.
- Add ½ of the egg mixture and beat on medium speed for 1 ½ minutes, scrape the
bottom and sides of the bowl. - Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 additions, mixing at medium speed for 20 seconds
after each addition. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and pour into
baking pans. - Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with
just a few crumbs attached. Makes 7 ½ cups batter. Works well for cupcakes
For the Eggnog Buttercream Frosting
- Cream the softened butter until smooth. Blend in vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.
- Add ½ of the powdered sugar and most of the eggnog. Beat at medium speed
until the powered sugar is incorporated. - Add the remaining powered sugar and eggnog and mix at medium speed another 3 to 4 minutes scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl occasionally.
- I slow down the mixer to very slow (#2 on the Kitchenaid) for 1 to 2 minutes. This will help eliminate air pockets in the
buttercream. - The recipe and be doubled or halved.
- Can be frozen in an airtight container for at least 3 months, thaw on the countertop
and remix.
Notes
(plain in UK). For each cup of flour, remove 2 Tablespoons (14g) flour and
replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch. For this recipe you will be removing 6 Tablespoons (42g) flour and replacing it with 6 Tablespoons corn starch. Whisk
for 30 seconds to combine. All purpose bleached flour will give you a more
tender cake, but you can also use all purpose unbleached flour.Will hold up to
fondant
This works for cupcakes as well? Thanks!
Great cake, turned out perfect. I used a cinnamon Swiss meringue buttercream.
It looks divine, Zoe, and cinnamon SMBC is a perfect choice. Thanks so much for posting a picture!
This was delicious. For anyone curious, the recipe makes about 29 cupcakes using a wilton standard cupcake scoop to fill the cups. There's actually a little batter left at that point, but not enough for a full cupcake, so next time I'd add a little bit of batter to each cupcake after the initial filling. They took about 21 minutes to bake.
Hi JadesRevenge, Thanks so much for posting the information on cupcakes, very helpful. We are happy to like the recipe!
Would really love to try this cake, but for some reason the reverse creaming never works for me. Is it possible for me to mix it the conventional way?
Hi Sara, Yes, you can definitely make any of the reverse creaming recipes using the conventional way. I suggest using one of your conventional recipes as a guide, rewrite the recipe into the conventional method. You are less likely to make a mistake if you rewrite the recipe. Be sure to count the ingredients to make sure you have not left out one. I think the only question you might have is when to add the vegetable oil......combine it with the eggnog to add alternately to the dry ingredients. Let me know if you have other questions.
Made the cake layers and they look delicious and smell delicious. I always have domes cakes though. What could be the cause of this.
Thanks,
Can rum be added
Hi Patrice, I think that could be done but we have not tried it so I am not sure how much rum to add for the flavor to come through. I think you could replace some of the milk with rum, maybe 1/4 cup. You could also add a teaspoon of rum extract in place of one of the teaspoons of vanilla (Wal-Mart carries rum extract) Hope all goes well, let me know what you think if you give it a try.
Hi, I did make the 3 layer cake with 2 8" pans. I followed your recommendation and kept the batter for the 3rd layer in the fridge while the first 2 layers baked. But I brought it back close to room temperature before baking. Indeed it didn't rise as much as the first 2 layers but the difference is not very big. The cake was delicious. I did make quite a few changes. I always cut the sugar and oil/butter down. That's just me. ☺ Thank you!
Hi Jennifer! Thanks for letting me know! It's back ;0)