Buttermilk Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Glaze
Buttermilk Bundt Cake is a perfect snack cake. The tangy-sweet buttermilk glaze forms an ultra-thin coating over the melt-in-your-mouth cake.
Table of contents
Why you’ll love this cake
If you read my blog with any frequency, by now you know that buttermilk is one of my favorite ingredients. I use it in all sorts of recipes from mashed potatoes to scones.
But I absolutely love using buttermilk in cake batter, not only for the special flavor, but mostly for the tenderizing effect that the slightly acidic ingredient has on the cake crumb.
For this recipe, we guild the lily with an absolutely fabulous buttermilk glaze that crackles and melts in your mouth.
To make the cake even more tender, this recipe uses the reverse creaming method of mixing rather than the traditional “cream the butter and sugar” method.
If you keep a Sourdough Starter, you should definitely try my Sourdough Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Glaze.
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Cake Flour – Low protein cake flour makes a cake with a tender crumb. I prefer to use bleached cake flour for the softest cake.
- Buttermilk – For this cake I don’t suggest swapping yogurt or soured milk, it’s really not the same. If you don’t want to buy buttermilk because you don’t want left overs in the fridge, the best substitute is buttermilk powder.
- Unsalted Butter – If you use salted butter eliminate the salt in the recipe.
- Eggs/Yolks – Using extra yolks in the batter makes a cake with a tender crumb. Learn more about eggs in cake batter in this post.
Process Photos
See the recipe card for detailed measurements and instructions.
- Butter and flour the Bundt pan. Be careful to coat the entire inside of the pan to avoid the cake sticking in the contours of the pan.
- Whisk half the buttermilk with the eggs, yolks and vanilla.
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- Sift the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl. Add room temperature butter.
- Mix the butter into the dry ingredients, then add the reserved buttermilk.
- Whip on medium high for 2 minutes until the batter is aerated. Scrape the bowl and beater.
- With the mixer running, add the egg mixture in 3 increments. Scrape the bowl between each addition.
- Scrape the bowl well to make sure there are no lumps of unmixed batter.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool 10-15 minutes in the pan before turning the cake out onto a cooling rack set over a clean sheet pan.
- Whisk buttermilk and vanilla into the powdered sugar.
- The glaze should be the texture of thin pancake batter.
- Drizzle the glaze over the slightly warm cake.
- You can leave the glaze with drip lines over the cake or you can scrape the glaze off the pan to fill in all the gaps to entirely glaze the cake. Let the glaze set then transfer the cake to a cake plate for serving.
Storage
- Buttermilk Bundt cake will keep at room temperature for 4-5 days. Make sure to cover the cut end of the cake with plastic wrap.
- Left over slices can be individually wrapped and frozen for up to a month.
Serving Suggestion
The cake is delicious all by itself, but I love to serve it with fresh berries or seasonal fruit. I find it pairs especially well with apricots or peaches.
If you love this recipe as much as I do, I’d really appreciate a 5-star review.
Buttermilk Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Glaze
Ingredients
Buttermilk Cake
- 2 large eggs
- 2 large yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 8 oz buttermilk (1 cup)
- 11 ¼ oz cake flour (2 ½ cups, see note)
- 11 oz granulated sugar (1 ⅓ cups)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- 6 oz unsalted butter (room temperature, cut into 1″ chunks)
Buttermilk Glaze
- 8 oz confectioner sugar (2 cups)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 oz buttermilk (¼ cup)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Butter and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.
Make the batter
- Whisk together 2 large eggs, 2 large yolks, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and 1/2 of the buttermilk, set aside.
- Sift 11 ¼ oz cake flour, 11 oz granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder and ½ teaspoon table salt into a mixer bowl. Mix on low speed to combine the dry ingredients. Toss 6 oz unsalted butter into the flour mixture and mix until the butter begins to break down.
- With the mixer running on low, add the reserved 1/2 cup of buttermilk. Increase the speed to medium. Mix on medium high for 2 minutes to aerate the batter. Scrape the bowl.
- Add the eggs in 3 batches, scraping the bowl between each addition. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.
- Cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Invert the cake onto a cooling rack set over a clean sheet pan.
Make the Glaze
- Combine 8 oz confectioner sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 oz buttermilk and whisk until smooth.
- Pour the glaze over the still slightly warm cake (see note). You can scoop up the glaze from the sheet pan and use it to fill in any gaps in the glaze or just leave the glaze with the drip effect.
- Cool completely and allow the glaze to set. Transfer to a serving plate.
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Have you ever tried vanilla extract and almond extract?
I’m trying to get a stronger butter flavor. Thank you for the recipe, the texture is amazing.
I haven’t tried it but I’m sure it would be delicious.
I am not a pound cake person, but I really liked this one. Tender crumb and flavorful. Would make again. Thanks. Substituted 2T cornstarch and fill the rest of the cup up with regular flour to make cake flour, which I didn’t have. Turned out great.
The recipe looks DIVINE and I love using buttermilk! One question – can AP flour be used or must it be cake flour? OR is there a way to convert AP flour into cake flour? I can’t wait to try it! Thank you.
You can’t just make a 1:1 swap for cake flour to ap flour. Ap flour will absorb more moisture and develop more gluten than cake flour and would make a heavy cake. It’s not a perfect substitution, but for each cup of cake flour you can substitute ¾ cup of all-purpose flour mixed with 2 tablespoons of corn starch. For this recipe that would mean replacing the 2 1/2 cups of cake flour with 1.8 cups of ap flour (for simplicity you can measure 2 cups and remove 2 tablespoons of flour) and 5 tablespoons of corn starch.
@Eileen Gray, Thank you for the reply. I think I’ll just spring for cake flour 🙂 Since baking is such a science, I’d hate to risk ruining a cake. I’ll let you know how it comes out. Thanks again.
I’m so glad I found this recipe designed for a Bundt pan. I wanted to make your Vanilla Buttermilk Cake, but I sent you a message asking if I could bake it in a Bundt pan. Now I have this one that I was trying to find. Thanks !!!
Lol, I just responded to your other question with a link to this recipe. Glad you found it.
I see you wrote 1 tbsp baking powder. Just making sure you did not mean 1 tsp baking powder as 1 tbsp is 3 tsp. Thanks. Waiting to hear from you before I make it.
I mean 1 tablespoon. This is a big cake and fairly heavy batter. It needs the leavening from plenty of baking powder.
@Eileen Gray, Thanks. I did make it and it looks good. But I have not yet tasted it. Will do later this evening after dinner. I will let you know. Thanks.
This recipe helped me beat my sister. She’s always bragging about her baking abilities. Thanks to this recipe she can’t continue to put down others cooking.
Lol.
I adapted the recipe with German flour and European units. Great cake! Thanks for sharing
FANTASTIC recipe! Cake was super easy to make and came out AMAZING!
Yes i bake in a bundt pan. In start the cake has volume inside the oven and the end after the oven, it loose the volume and inside has many moisture.
The cake isn’t cooked completely, Let it cook for additional time until a toothpick stuck into the cake comes out clean.
Yes, as stated in the recipe. Bake until the cake springs back and a toothpick comes out clean, about 45 minutes. The times listed in a recipe are just a guideline since there are many variables that can affect the actual baking time.
Hello, i am despoina frin greece and i must to tell you this recipe has a problem. After the oven the cake it loose the volume. Today make it for the second time and the problem it was here. Tell me way, please?
Hi Despoina. It’s hard to help without knowing exactly how you did the recipe. I do know that flour and other ingredients can vary from country to country so that could be the problem. Did you bake it in a Bundt pan?
I freeze buttermilk in 1/2 cup portions in plastic baggies and then I use my food-saver for extra protection. Once it is thawed I just throw it in the blender.
Great idea! Thanks for sharing.
I used to swear by buttermilk powder and then I purchased a heritage buttermilk starter culture. I make my own buttermilk weekly(or more frequently when I cook/bake more often). You keep 2oz out of the old buttermilk to add to a quart of fresh milk. Leave it out overnight and in the morning I have a quart of new buttermilk! Whether it’s baking, making buttermilk waffles for breakfast or a new batch of buttermilk ranch dressing everything is better when I use fresh buttermilk in the recipe. Thanks for a new buttermilk cake recipe. I can’t wait to try it.
Hi! What a great idea to use the starter. Personally, I never have trouble using up buttermilk. I almost always have it in the house. It’s absolutely one of my favorite baking ingredients.
I love the cake and the ideas what to serve with it like fresh berries, seasonal frui, apricots and peaches. Thank you, Eileen.
You’re welcome.
I love your suggestion about using dry buttermilk powder! I use it for baking bread and making crepes but I didn’t know I could use it for cakes as well.
That’s great Julia. I almost always have buttermilk on hand because I love to use it. But I know it’s a pain to buy a quart and end up throwing half of it away. Buttermilk powder is great if you don’t use buttermilk that often.
Sorry for not responding sooner. The baking time will vary based on your oven and the cake pan. For me the baking time was about 35 minutes. The best test is not time but to check by using a toothpick or pressing on the cake as described in the recipe.
Thanks, Eileen! I think I ended up baking it 50 minutes, but that was probably 4-5 minutes too long. Still an absolutely delicious cake! Thanks again for posting the recipe! 🙂
Sure, glad you enjoyed it. I recently discovered that my oven was running 25-50 degrees too hot so I may have baked this cake at a higher temp than listed in the recipe. I’ll have to remake it and double check the time posted. If your cake took 45 minutes that might be closer to the correct time. But always go more by how the cake looks than the clock. Thanks for checking in!
Hi! Thanks for the amazing looking recipe! I have the cake in the oven right now. You don’t mention other than at the opening of the recipe how long the cake spends in the oven. So far I’m at 40 minutes and it’s still liquid in the center. How long do you typically bake this cake?