CAKE TIME! I’d like you to meet my new favourite ‘plain vanilla’ cake recipe. Except it’s NOT just plain vanilla! It’s brown buttah baby. And it also has plenty of beautiful vanilla bean paste. And it’s made with buttermilk, too!
So it has a little extra tang, it’s beautifully moist, it’s got some nutty complexity and plenty of fragrance too. Winner, winner, layer cake dinner.
The other AWESOME thing about this cake is that it’s a melt-and-mix situation. So all you need is a big bowl and a wooden spoon, no heavy machinery, no butter to soften, no beating and creaming required. PERFECT if you, like me, can never remember to get butter out to soften.
Especially if it’s your birthday, and you realise that you’re a food blogger and your blog is called The Sugar Hit and you’ve completely forgotten to make yourself a birthday cake! (Don’t worry, I did have Birthday Key Lime Pie)
The idea for the cake recipe came from the fact that I often find cakes that start with ‘cream butter and sugar’ to be a little dense and dry, a little too poundcake-y. They’re delicious in their own way, but they’re a little too heavy for all the frosting and filling of a full on layer cake. So, what to do?
Well, all my favourite chocolate layer cakes all have that beautiful lush texture that I was chasing, and they are all made with a lot of liquid, and usually oil in place of butter. So I worked my way to a vanilla cake mix backwards from my favourite chocolate ones – loose the chocolate, decrease the liquid a little, decrease the sugar.
Then I wanted to jack up the flavour as much as possible, and oil is bland as hell, so I switched in some browned butter and added plenty of vanilla bean paste. I used buttermilk for my liquid, to give flavour and that lush texture and after a few misfires… TA-DAAAA! Tasty, easy, one bowl cake PERFECT for frosting and filling.
To frost this bad boy, I made a big old batch of vanilla buttercream, sliced each of my cakes into two and layered them up. Then I crumb coated the cake and slammed it into the fridge.
For the sick, swirly, almost camo-style coating (so 90s!) I took the rest of the icing, divided it into three, tinting one third blue and another third pink and leaving the last third white. Then I blobbed the icings all over the cake, and finally went over it with a big, clean palette knife. I piped the remaining icing into a weird little mountain-range on the top and sprinkled over a scattering of assorted sprinkles.
Also HOW FREAKING COOL IS MY HAT! It’s from an awesome cupcake bakery in Melbourne called Cupcake Central and I haven’t taken it off for about three days, because I’m in love with it. Their motto is ‘Hatch That Dream’ and their cupcakes are beautiful and very inspiring – I want to move into their store! Definitely check them out if you’re ever in Melbourne!
Anyway – I hope you try this one out lovelies! Have a great weekend!
xx Sarah.
- 1 stick (115g) butter
- 2 + ½ cups (375g) plain flour
- 1½ cups (300g) caster sugar (aka superfine sugar)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarb soda (baking soda)
- pinch of salt
- 1½ cups (375ml) buttermilk
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 3 eggs
- 300g (2 sticks + 5 tbsp) butter, softened
- 5 cups (600g) icing sugar (powdered sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 2-4 tbsp milk
- optional: food colouring (I like natural colours)
- optional: sprinkles
- Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 18cm (8inch) cake tins.
- Place the butter into a medium saucepan over a medium heat, and let melt and then begin to bubble. Keep cooking the butter - it will spit, and then foam up (a lot - if it seems like it'll spill over remove from the heat until it calms down and then continue), and then begin to brown. Stop when the butter is nice and dark, almost tea-like in colour. Set aside to cool.
- Place the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
- In a separate pitcher, whisk together the buttermilk, vanilla and eggs, and finally the cooled browned butter (including all the browned bits).
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, then stir with a wooden spoon until everything is completely combined - try not to overmix.
- Divide between the two tins, smooth out the batter and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then remove from the tins and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
- To make the frosting, beat the butter and vanilla on a high speed in a stand mixer until pale and creamy. Add in half the sugar, and beat on a low speed until incorporated. Then add the remaining half and beat again, on a low speed, until incorporated.
- Turn the mixer to a high speed, and beat, adding in the milk a tbsp at a time, beating well between each, until the frosting reaches a fluffy, spreadable and smooth consistency. You may not need all the milk.
- Trim the cakes, if they are domed, and slice each layer in half. Use half the icing to fill and crumb-coat the cake, and then divide the remaining into three, tinting one third blue, one third pink and leaving the final third white.
- Blob the icings all over the cake, and then smooth over with a large palette knife.
- Pipe any remaining icing in little peaks on top of the cake, and top with sprinkles, if desired.
i love one bowl things! less dishes means more time to decorate/devour/chill. the cake sounds so flavorful and moist, and i can’t wait to try it once i muster the courage to try my scary apartment oven.
This cake is seriously cool! Absolutely loving the swirly contrasting icing look (and the hat, of course – suits you down to the ground!). Great idea of using brown butter, vanilla and buttermilk for a vanilla cake that isn’t boring at all <3
My goodness, Sarah! What a crazy awesome looking cake! I wish I could see the inside of it!
OMG that is so gorgeous! love the frosting. I need to try this watercolor technique, it’s so pretty :)
This cake is so fun and cute! It’s exciting just to looks at. I love the way you’ve adapted the texture by adding oil and made up the flavor difference by browning the butter. You are either a genius or a criminal mastermind, not sure which. Love it, girl! And HAPPY B-DAY btw!
These colors!!! I’m obsessed! I feel like I need to wear a hyper color tee shirt and some classic 90’s bath and body works scents while I devour this!
Hi Sarah, finally i get to leave a comment. i hope that shows how much i love this awesome cake. im going to make it for our son’s 13th birthday with more mud/green colours. thank you soooo much for a brilliant recipe and fantastic inspiration. the hat looks amazing on you! sammie xx
This cake is so ridiculously fun!!!! Love it so much!
OHMYGAWD, this CAKE! I love the way you frosted that sucker. It’s beautiful and totally you! xoxo
Total work of art right here!! This looks so good!
Oh my gosh! This looks so cool! I love the colors. I was sold at browned buttah, sounds tasty!!!
This cake!! That HAT!!!
Nice tie-dye icing job! you are so right about chocolate cakes having better texture than vanilla. And then the brown butter and all that vanilla bean paste and the buttermilk. Ah! You are so good. I want this for my birthday.
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So much colour, plus brown butter = winner is my books! Loving it!
This cake is gorgeous and sounds delicious!
GAH, this cake! I looooove it. I could live on brown butter (and cake, duh).
I wish I was ten and it was my birthday! This cake looks awesome!
Sarah! That cake is glorious. Any unicorn would be delighted to eat that on their birthday. I’m especially happy because I’ve decided not to buy a mixer while we’re in London (part challenge to myself, part no space to put it) – which has meant that so far I’ve been baking a lot of brownies and chocolate muffins. Do you happen to have a fail proof cookie recipe I can do sans machinery?
GURL! I love that challenge – my favourite easy cookie recipe is Hugh fearnley whittingstall’s 10 min choc chip cookies – so easy, and no mixer!
Thanks dude! That recipe is brilldogs. I’ve made it twice already :)
If you wanted to substitute vanilla extract for the paste, how much would I use? I know the paste gives heaps more flavor, but my cupboards are bursting and can’t accommodate even just one more baking ingredient!
Hey lovely! Just do an equal amount – no big deal, it will still be delicious! My cupboards are bursting at the seams, so I feel your pain!
Wow, this cake has some serious waaaa factor. The colour is amazing, kind of looks like a pair of the yoga pants I own (don’t know what I wanted to say with this comparison, but it’s deffinitely positive). I am in love with the flavour as well!
This is one seriously cool cake. I could stare at it for hours! Ok, scratch that – I want to just cut this bad boy open and shove it in my face!
Sarah you rock, i mean ROCK! Your recipes are always making me want to run to the kitchen! I wish i could get hold of your cookbook but i live in Belgium so i suppose i would have to rely on your blog :-)
Hi Shan! Thank you SO MUCH! You rock! If you want to order a copy of my book, a website called The Book Depository has free shipping worldwide!
Love it ! wonderful colours would have been great if you had been able to video icing method. Will give it a go.
I love that cap!
That frost job made me think SPACE UNICORN! I love it so much.
Hi Sarah,
Can I make this cake as a slab, I would love to bring it to a gathering so I can cut it in little squares and pop it into our mouths . would it work? if so would you need to recommend doing anything different other than the size of the dish? I assume if it can be done I would use a 13×9 pan?
Hey Connie – I haven’t done it myself, but I can’t see why not? A 13x9in pan would be the one you need, and you might need to increase the baking time a little bit as well – but other than that it should be smooth sailing!
This cake is AWESOME!!
I love that hat!
YOU ARE GENIUS!!!!! I love brown butter and I am totally pinning this as my new fave “basic” cake recipe!