Kentucky Butter Cake

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How have I never heard of a Kentucky Butter Cake? How did I miss its existence? Pound cake soaked in a butter sugar syrup? Can we say yes, please!?

Now on the face of it I admit it sounds almost too rich. And I was not quite sure what to expect when I made it. But holy wow it is delicious! Not for everyday I concede–and indeed I did make it for a little dinner party, thus ensuring that it would not just be my immediately family eating it. But nor is it too rich for enjoyment. Kind of perfect actually, sadly for my waistline!

When I first found the recipe (I forget where now) I was surprised to learn that you cool the cake completely in the pan. Setting out to see if this was a quirk of the Kentucky Butter Cake I did some googling and discovered that first of all, the Kentucky Butter Cake is remarkably consistent from recipe to recipe and second yes it specifically does require cooling completely in the pan. This made me nervous, but as you can see the cake did release. I would not use too intricate of a bundt pan however.

The recipe I chose to work from is at Simply Scratch. Laurie did one thing differently from everyone else I found–she reserved half of the soaking liquid and brushed it over the outside of the cake.  I love the idea of a sugary, almost crispy crust so I was sold on this idea immediately. And it paid off–we all loved this cake. Sometimes the last few pieces of cake go uneaten, as we get tired of eating the same cake night after night. Not this one. It disappeared quickly. Too quickly! So head on over to Laurie’s site and check out the recipe!