Includes Regular and High-Altitude Recipes
Looking for something different? If you’ve tried Sour Cream Chocolate Cake, Old-Fashioned Coconut Cake, or Lemon-Blueberry Cake, and you’re looking for something new, you really need to try this Butter Pecan Cake Recipe. From an old Southern recipe, this cake is loaded with toasted pecans, and topped with an unusual brown sugar cream cheese frosting.
Why Choose This Butter Pecan Cake Recipe?
There are a lot of recipes for this cake out there on the web. I’ve analyzed them using Shirley Corriher’s Bakewise text and found almost all of them to be far too high in fat and a bit underleavened for the amount of liquid they call for. This will give you a greasy, cludgy cake that won’t rise as high as it should.
Further, the only “high-altitude” version that I found of this cake is way off on the leavening. Normally, yes, you would reduce the leavening by about half for my altitude of 6,000 feet. But you also have to factor in the weight of the ingredients. And in this cake, with the nuts, nut butter, and the amount of liquid, you’ll need a bit more leavening than normal to make it nice and fluffy. (For more on converting your recipes to high-altitude, see my article on High-Altitude Baking Adjustments.)
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
I love cream cheese frosting, and use it quite a lot on my cakes. This recipe calls for swapping out a bit of the confectioner’s sugar with brown sugar, and that takes a little extra technique.
First, it’s important to use soft brown sugar. You can use light or dark, depending on how strong a flavor you want, but if your sugar has gone solid, you’ll need to soften it up before you can use it. Just dump the hardened sugar into a Ziploc bag and throw in a slice of bread or a few apple slices. Overnight, the sugar will soften up again. I recommend sifting the sugar to remove any stray solid crystals that can form when the sugar has been left to harden.
When mixing the brown sugar with the butter and cream cheese, take your time and mix it well. The water in the butter and cream cheese will allow the sugar to break down, but it just takes some time. It works much better with room temperature ingredients!
I have included both the regular and high-altitude versions of this Butter Pecan Cake Recipe.
Butter Pecan Cake (Altitudes Below 3,000 ft)
Equipment
- 2 9" Round Cake Pans
- Food Processor or Small nut grinder
Ingredients
Toasted Pecans
- 1 1/2 Cup Pecans
- 3 tbsp Butter
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
Butter Pecan Cake
- 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour 275 g
- 2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 Cups Granulated Sugar 236 g
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Light or Dark, 111 g
- 8 tbsp Butter Softened
- 3 lg Eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Maple Extract
- 2/3 Cup Sour Cream
- 2/3 Cup Milk whole
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz Cream Cheese Softened, room temperature (very important!)
- 4 tbsp Butter Softened, room temperature
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Use soft sugar – cannot be dried out. See notes below to re-soften hard sugar.
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Maple Extract
- Salt pinch
- 2 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Toasted Pecan Chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 9" cake pans. Line bottom with parchment if your cakes tend to stick.
Toasted Pecans
- Use pecan chips or chop whole pecans into small pieces, about the size of a pea.
- Melt butter in a large bowl and whisk in cinnamon. Add pecans and toss to coat.
- Spread buttered pecans on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a Sil-Pat and toast in a 350°F oven for about 5 minutes, tossing once or twice to turn.
- Watch carefully as nuts will burn very quickly if you aren't careful!
- Remove from oven and place in a bowl to cool. Set aside 1/2 cup of chips for the frosting, another 1/2 cup for the cake. Pour the remaining nuts in a food processor or small Bullet-style nut grinder and grind to a paste.
Cake – Regular Altitude
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars.
- Blend in the eggs.
- Blend in the extracts and sour cream.
- Add 1/3 of the flour and mix until blended. Add 1/2 the milk and repeat. Continue until you've added all the flour and milk.
- Finally, add in the pecan butter from the food processor or grinder and the 1/2 cup of pecans. Mix thoroughly, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl.
- Divide batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and bake for 30 minutes, or until cake just begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and the center springs back at the touch.
- Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for ten minutes, then invert to remove from pans completely. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool completely.
Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the room-temperature cream cheese and butter. (If it's too cold, the brown sugar will not dissolve properly).
- Add the brown sugar and mix until light and fluffy. This will take a while – you want the texture to be smooth and not gritty.
- Mix in the extracts and pinch of salt.
- Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time until well-blended.
- Frost completely-cooled cakes and top with remaining pecan chips.
Notes
Butter Pecan Cake (3,000 to 6,500 feet altitude)
Equipment
- 2 9" Round Cake Pans
- Food Processor or Small nut grinder
Ingredients
Toasted Pecans
- 1 1/2 Cups Pecans
- 3 tbsp Butter
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
Butter Pecan Cake
- 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour (PLUS 2 Tablespoons) 290 g
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 Cup Granulated Sugar (LESS 1 1/2 Tablespoons) 210 g
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Light or Dark, 111 g
- 8 tbsp Butter Softened
- 3 lg Eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Maple Extract
- 2/3 Cup Sour Cream
- 1 Cup Whole Milk
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz Cream Cheese Softened, room temperature (very important)
- 4 tbsp Butter Softened, room temperature
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Use soft sugar – cannot be dried out. See notes below to re-soften hard sugar.
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Maple Extract
- Salt pinch
- 2 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Toasted Pecan Chips
Instructions
Toasted Pecans
- Use pecan chips or chop whole pecans into small pieces, about the size of a pea.
- Melt butter in a large bowl and whisk in cinnamon. Add pecans and toss to coat.
- Spread buttered pecans on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a Sil-Pat and toast in a 350°F oven for about 5 minutes, tossing once or twice to turn.
- Watch carefully as nuts will burn very quickly if you aren’t careful!
- Remove from oven and place in a bowl to cool. Set aside 1/2 cup of chips for the frosting, another 1/2 cup for the cake. Pour the remaining nuts in a food processor or small Bullet-style nut grinder and grind to a paste.
Cake – High Altitude
- Increase the oven heat to 375° F (190 °C)
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars.
- Blend in the eggs.
- Blend in the extracts and sour cream.
- Add 1/3 of the flour and mix until blended. Add 1/2 the milk and repeat. Continue until you’ve added all the flour and milk.
- Finally, add in the pecan butter from the food processor or grinder and the 1/2 cup of pecans. Mix thoroughly, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl.
- Divide batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and bake for 30 minutes, or until cake just begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and the center springs back at the touch.
- Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for ten minutes, then invert to remove from pans completely. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool completely.
Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the room-temperature cream cheese and butter. (If it’s too cold, the brown sugar will not dissolve properly).
- Add the brown sugar and mix until light and fluffy. This will take a while – you want the texture to be smooth and not gritty.
- Mix in the extracts and pinch of salt.
- Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time until well-blended.
- Frost completely-cooled cakes and top with remaining pecan chips.
Notes
Bakewise by Shirley Corriher
I was trained as a chemist. That’s why I appreciate Shirley Corriher’s approach to baking. She approaches it with a scientific eye. She explains how various ingredients impact a baked product, and then shows you how to make corrections for it. Adding chocolate to a cake? Chocolate is a drying agent, so you’ll need to adjust the liquid. Oh, and if you adjust the liquid, you’ll probably need to adjust the leavening as well.
Once you’ve studied her processes, you’ll be able to look at almost any recipe and spot an error from a mile away. That’s how I caught the errors in this recipe, and how I was able to make the appropriate adjustments to improve the quality and texture.
Pick up a copy of Shirley Corriher’s Bakewise today. Click here to order.
