This butter cake is made with a combination of oil and butter to keep it nice and moist, yet still bursting with buttery flavour! It’s soft, fluffy and goes perfectly with a hot cup of tea.
How this butter cake is made
I experimented with a few different techniques, but found the traditional creaming method worked well with this recipe! Start with creaming together your butter, sugar and oil until light and fluffy. This is going to help incorporate air into our batter which will give us a lighter and fluffier cake. Then add in your eggs one at a time, allowing them to incorporate into the batter well. Finish off by alternating your remaining wet and dry ingredients on the lowest speed on your mixer until just combined.
What is the shelf life?
This cake can be stored at room temperature in an air tight container for about 3-4 days, and after that should be kept in the fridge. Ensure you wrap the butter cake with foil or glad wrap and then pop it into an air tight container to prevent the cake from drying out in the fridge.
What frosting should I use?
This cake is great on it’s own, but a frosting makes it even better! My personal favourite is Swiss meringue buttercream, but even a simpler no-grit American buttercream will work great!
Classic Butter Cake
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (220 g) butter - salted
- 1 cup (220 g) caster sugar - regular white granulated sugar okay too
- 1 tbsp unflavoured vegetable oil - I use canola
- 5 large eggs
- 1¾ cups (220 g) all purpose flour - cake flour okay too
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ½ cup (112 g) buttermilk
- 1½ tsp vanilla essence/extract
Instructions
- All ingredients must be at room temperature before starting 🙂
- Preheat your oven to 150 °C (302°F) with the fan on (see note 1 if you don't have a fan function) and grease and line an 8 inch square cake tin (round okay too).
- Sift your flour and baking powder together in a bowl and mix it together. Set aside.
- Combine your buttermilk and vanilla together in a separate bowl and set aside.
- Cream together your butter, sugar and oil for about 5 minutes until it's light and creamy. If using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment on a medium high speed.
- Add in your eggs one at a time on a medium speed, mixing well in between each egg. Scrape your bowl down as needed.
- Turn your mixer down to the lowest speed, and add in half of your dry ingredients until it's almost combined. Then add in your buttermilk/vanilla mixture and mix that until it's almost combined. Add in the remaining dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Pour the batter into your prepared cake tin and then bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool further. You can eat it while it's still warm, or if you're going to frost it, let it completely cool before adding any frostings on top.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
118 Comments
Super moist and delicious, it came out beautifully! The quantity was perfect too and exactly what I was looking for. Most butter cake recipes I’ve found are for a single layer, where it’s too small but doubling it makes the cake too big, but this recipe produced a cake at the perfect height to cut into two layers. I filled and decorated it with a buttercream icing. My new go-to butter cake recipe!
Awesome! So happy to hear you loved the recipe and you got just the perfect amount that you were looking for 😀
In addition, if I only have unsalted butter, can I use it?
Yes totally! 🙂 This is actually an older recipe which I need to update as I prefer using unsalted butter with the addition of salt 🙂
Hello! I saw that you said that if my oven doesn’t have a fan option, I should preheat to 338F, but my oven only has 325 and 350, which one can I bake it on? I also wanted to ask if it’s the same cooking time for a 8/10 inch cake pan, please? Thank you so much!
Hi Somto! 🙂 Bake at 350F and check the cake a few minutes earlier than the stated cooking time just to ensure it’s not overbaked 🙂 for an 8 inch pan it should be around the same, but for a 10 inch cake pan it’ll cook slightly faster (as the batter will be more spread out) 🙂 hope that helps!
Hi can u use this recipe in a loaf pan
Hi Mandy! I haven’t tried this recipe in a loaf pan myself but I imagine it should work fine! You may just need adjust the cooking time 🙂 enjoy!
i tried this recipe, super moist testure. i loved it.
Awesome! So happy to hear you enjoyed it Sunthari 😀
I don’t have an oven, but I only had an air fryer. can I use an air fryer?
Hi Aelya 🙂 I have never tried baking in an air fryer before so I’m really not sure about that sorry! There maybe other blogs that you can check out that may have tips on baking in air fryers 🙂
I just made this cake – it was AMAZING!! I LOVE your recipes. Your instructions are so clear and precise, everyone in my family is happier since I found your website and have been trying your recipes !!!
Aww so so happy to hear that Shernaz! Really appreciate the feedback 😀
Hi,
I would like to give this cake a try.
Just a question where the buttermilk is concerned. I will have to make it at home since it isn’t available in supermarkets.
Kindly let me know the ratio of milk and vinegar please.
Thank you.
Hi Samantha! 🙂 Check out this blog post for homemade buttermilk: https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/how-to-make-buttermilk/
Can this recipe be made without oil, or have an oil based substitute? Also can this recipe be made in a bundt pan? Thanks
Hi Yaseen! I haven’t tried an oil substitute myself so I’m not too sure sorry, although some people substitute oil with butter which would probably work, but just keep in mind it may be slightly less moist 🙂
Made this cake again – minus the saffron (my previous review).
Wasn’t sure what you meant by regular sugar – white sugar or raw sugar? So I used raw sugar. It turned out amazing!
So happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe Yasmin! And I meant white granulated sugar but so glad to hear raw sugar worked too 😀