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.
132 Comments
Hi Maryam!
I noticed that there were brown specks on top of the butter cake.
Are they sugar clumps?
Hi there! 🙂
Brown specks could be due to either undissolved sugar granules (more likely to happen if you used a sugar with larger granules), or it could be specks of the baking powder that hasn’t properly mixed in. In case you didn’t, I would recommend sifting the dry ingredients to make sure any little lumps are broken up 🙂
Hope that helps for next time!
Hi can I have the measurement for 6inch pan ??
Hi Rose! For a 6 inch pan, half the recipe should work well 🙂
my mum and dad absolutely love this!
Yay! So so happy to hear they’re enjoying the butter cake Zainab 🙂
I made this for the first time, came out so good, the taste and the look, sorry was not able to take pics but this is the best butter cake ever.
Hi Ivy! So so happy to hear you enjoyed the butter cake 😀 thanks so much for your feedback!
I used an 8 x 8 pan because there was no mention of size of pan in recipe. We will see how tall it gets!!
Hi Deb! The pan size is mentioned in the second instruction on the recipe card 🙂 I did use an 8×8 inch pan so you got the size spot on!
Hope you enjoyed the recipe 🙂
I just baked this cake….so yummy & awesome 🤗🤗 I never know for butter cake we can also add in vege oil that makes a huge difference. The buttermilk also plays a role in it. So delicious I am going to bake more and promote it. Tq chef for sharing
Awesome! So happy to hear you loved the recipe Hannah 😀 yes oil makes a huge difference when it comes to making/keeping cakes moist, as well as buttermilk for a fluffy texture 😀
Thank you again for the wonderful feedback!
Hey maryam!
I loved the recipe. It was amazing! I ave one question though, what king of icing would be best?
Hi Aan! So happy to hear you loved the recipe :D. Because it’s a vanilla flavored cake, you could really use any type of frosting! My smooth buttercream will work great, but I also have a whole bunch of other frostings you can find here: https://cakesbymk.com/recipe-category/frostings/
Loved the recipe. The cake is wonderfully moist. Used a chocolate ganache to ice it
Thank you so much Nerima! 😀 So so happy to hear you loved the cake 🙂 chocolate ganache is the perfect icing to go with this cake! 😀
Hi Maryam,
I tried making this butter cake recipe for my parents for iftar, and it was amazing! Thanks for sharing this recipe! ❤️
Hi Aan! So so happy to hear you and your parents loved the recipe 😀 hope you had a wonderful Ramadhan and Eid! 🙂
What if you don’t have buttermilk
Hi Rita! Check out this blog post for a homemade buttermilk substitute 🙂 https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/how-to-make-buttermilk/
The aroma of Classic Butter Cake is just Wonderful and makes you hungry.
The result was a lovely cake despite electricity was out for ½hour.
Thank U Maryam for this Lovely Recipe.
Guess I’m gonna bake again.
Wishing you and All # Eid Mubarak
Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback Rina! So happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe and hope you had a wonderful Eid 😀
Have made this cake twice now and it was a hit both times! Thanks Maryam ☺️
I sprinkled fresh blueberries on top the second time, and although they sank to the bottom it was still delicious! Any tips to prevent sinking? Or is this recipe just not dense enough to support them? Either way, this cake is definitely my new go-to!
So so happy to hear you’re loving the recipe Ayesha! 😀 To prevent berries from sinking to the bottom, coat them in flour before adding them to the cake batter – this should help 🙂
Hello Maryam,
This recipe is superb (chefs kiss).
I regularly bake but always looking to find new recipes that my friends and family would like.
I made this cake for my mum for Mother’s day (in the UK) and I had a slice of it and absolutely love the buttery taste, how moist and fluffy it is and doesn’t need any topping.
This will be a regular on my baking list no doubt!
Hi Charmaine! So so happy to hear you loved the butter cake recipe and really apprciate the feedback 😀