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buttermilk

Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting

March 20, 2021 by sblades 6 Comments

My choice for March’s Cake Slice Baker’s cake is Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting.  Different and delicious!

Small spice cake cut in half on a green marble stand.
At first I thought this may be more of a Fall choice, but why should we have to wait till then for such a tasty little cake?  A reminder – this is a 6″ cake, just as all of the cakes in Little Everyday Cakes are smaller portion desserts.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on the flavor and texture.  Then Bret had a piece and mentioned it tastes like a carrot cake without all the extra stuff (carrots, pineapple, coconut, nut).  He’s right.  That’s exactly what it tastes like.

The cake is barely sweet, but the brown sugar buttercream is fairly sweet, so the two together make a wonderful combination.  Be sure and try to get frosting with every bite!

Slice of Spice Cake on a small white plate.

The buttercream has brown sugar in it and the photo in the book looks really smooth and creamy.  Mine had a little brown sugar crunch.  I kept beating it, but it never achieved the smooth consistency called for.

I’m not complaining though.  I loved the little bit of brown sugar crunch.  It goes amazingly well with the light fluffy cake.

I baked the cake part of this recipe, then refrigerated the two layers for a couple of days until time to frost them.  They came out fine and the texture was nice.

Tips for a Successful Cake:

  • Make sure, as always, that your ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg are fresh.  Toss away those five-year-old spices, please.  It makes quite a difference in flavor.
  • The eggs and buttermilk need to be at room temperature.  This prevents curdling when you add them to the batter.
  • Use a hand mixer for the best result.  Since these are small cakes, the butter and batter will just smush up against the sides of a big stand mixer bowl and not be blended as well.

Full 6-inch cake, frosted on a green marble surface.

We have enjoyed the heck out of this miniature Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting.  It’s a perfect size for several servings for two people and you won’t be eating giant pieces.

Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting

Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting

Yield: 8 small slices
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes

Barely sweet spiced cake with a luscious brown sugar buttercream.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/3 C all-purpose flour (160g)
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 C butter, softened (113g)
  • 1 C packed brown sugar (213 g)
  • 2 eggs, room temperature
  • 1 egg yolk, room temperature
  • 2/3 C buttermilk, room temperature (139g)
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting:
  • 1/2 C butter, softened
  • 1/4 C packed brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 C powdered sugar, sifted
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 to 2 tbsp milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 325°. Spray two 6" round cake pans with cooking spray. Line each pan with parchment paper, spray the parchment paper, then lightly flour the bottom and sides of the pans. Knock out excess flour.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
  3. Place the butter in a medium mixing bowl. Use a hand-held mixer on medium speed and beat the butter until creamy. Add the brown sugar and beat until fluffy, 4-5 minutes.
  4. Add the eggs and egg yolk one at a time, beating well after adding each one.
  5. Reduce the mixer speed to low, then add about a half-cup of flour, then half of the buttermilk. Add another half cup of flour, then the rest of the buttermilk and blend. Finish with the 1/3 cup of flour and mix just until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
  6. Add the vanilla and beat 30 seconds. Pour half of the batter into each pan and bake for 28 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out almost clean.
  7. Put the pans on a wire rack and let the cakes cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and let them cool completely on the wire rack.
  8. Prepare the frosting: Place the butter and brown sugar into a mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer at medium speed and beat until smooth, about 3 minutes (may not be completely smooth - that's OK). Add the powdered sugar a little at a time and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla and one tablespoon of the milk and beat until smooth. Add milk a teaspoon at a time until it's the consistency desired.
  9. Place one cake on a cake plate and use about one-third of the frosting on that layer. Place the second layer on top and frost the tops and sides of the cake.

Notes

Changes from the original recipe: The original recipe calls for unsalted butter. If you use unsalted butter, add 1/4 tsp salt to the buttercream.

The original recipe calls for 1/4 tsp ground cloves, but I think that's overwhelming, so only use 1/8 tsp.

I used 2% milk to thin the frosting. It works fine.

Use little strips of wax paper around the bottom layer of the cake while you frost it to have a neat bottom border. Slide them out carefully when you're through frosting the cake.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 8 Serving Size: 1 slice
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 527Total Fat: 26gSaturated Fat: 16gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 134mgSodium: 552mgCarbohydrates: 70gFiber: 1gSugar: 52gProtein: 5g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

© Candace Floyd
Category: Cakes
 
 

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is Little Everyday Cakes by Candace Floyd. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th – never before – we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

 

 

 

It is a new year and a new book – Little Everyday Cakes – and our choices for March 2021 were ~ 

 

Crumb Cake

  • All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
  • A Little Bit of All Right
  • A Day in the Life on the Farm
  • Sweet Sensations

Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting

  • My Recipe Reviews
  • Culinary Adventures with Camilla
  • Amandie Bakes

Jam Cake

  • Making Miracles
  • Karen’s Kitchen Stories
  • Camille Cooks
 
 

Filed Under: All Recipes, Cakes Tagged With: brown sugar buttercream, buttermilk, Cake Slice Bakers, desserts for two, Fall cakes, small cakes, spice cake

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake (#thecakeslicebakers)

July 20, 2018 by sblades 6 Comments

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

July’s Cake Slice Baker’s options for our challenge include this Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake from the wonderful cake cookbook The Perfect Cake by America’s Test Kitchen. I’m loving this book more and more every month!

At first I thought, oh gee another lemon cake, but after making this I’ve decided this is my favorite lemon cake ever. Really. Ever.

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

The instructions from The Perfect Cake are excellent each step of the way. I love the way the sugar and lemon zest are mixed together first of all, bringing out the lemon aroma and flavor to the extreme.

But wait – there’s more lemon! Fresh lemon juice and more zest (fresh only, please – no green-bottle lemon juice) are mixed in along with buttermilk, eggs (3 whole, plus 1 yolk), and butter. They recommend the eggs, buttermilk, and butter be at room temperature as it really helps the mixture come together and results in a more creamy batter.

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Not enough lemon? Let’s top it off with lemon zest-sugar mixture sprinkled across the top. The result is a light, spongy lemon cake finished off with a nice lemon-buttermilk glaze and a crunchy sugar topping. Heaven for lemon lovers!

A change I made to the recipe is that I made my own buttermilk (one cup of 2% milk and one teaspoon vinegar, stir and let sit while other ingredients come to room temperature). It worked great as I don’t usually have buttermilk in the fridge. I also made an 8×8″ cake and 3 mini-loaves instead of a 13×9″ cake so I could give some of the cake to friends more easily. Besides that, this Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake works perfectly by ATK’s instructions.

If you love lemon…..here you go!

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Yield: 12-15 pieces
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes

Outstanding lemony cake with a lightly sugar-crunch lemony glaze.

Ingredients

  • For the Cake:
  • 2 1/2 C (10 oz) cake flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 C buttermilk, room temperature
  • 3 tbsp grated lemon zest, plus 1/4 C juice (about 3 lemons)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 C (12 1/4 oz) granulated sugar
  • 12 tbsp butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened
  • 3 large eggs plus 1 large yolk, room temperature
  • For the Glaze:
  • 3 C (12 oz) powdered sugar
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp buttermilk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 325°. Spray and flour a 13x9" baking pan.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla.
  3. In a stand mixer bowl, beat together the sugar and lemon zest on medium speed until moist, fragrant, and fully combined, about 1 minute. Scoop out 1/4 cup of the sugar/lemon mixture and place in a small bowl; cover and set aside.
  4. Add the butter to the sugar mixture in the stand mixer bowl and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 2 additions, and mix until smooth, about 30 seconds (don't over mix). Remove the bowl from the stand and stir by hand to make sure there's no flour on the bottom of the bowl.
  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs clinging to it, 25 to 30 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
  6. For the glaze, whisk powdered sugar, lemon juice, and buttermilk in a bowl until smooth. Spread the glaze over the still-warm cake and sprinkle evenly with the reserved lemon sugar mixture. Let cool completely, at least 2 hours.

Notes

I made my own buttermilk (stir together 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vinegar and let sit for at least 15 minutes). It's a nice trick if you don't have buttermilk in the fridge.

It's important that ingredients are at room temperature, so don't skip that. Sometimes ingredients will look (and be) curdled if ingredients are too cold.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1 square
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 238Total Fat: 14gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 93mgSodium: 338mgCarbohydrates: 24gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 5g
© America's Test Kitchen
Category: Cakes

Filed Under: All Recipes, Cakes, Fruit Tagged With: America's Test Kitchen, buttermilk, lemon, lemon buttermilk cake, lemon cake, lemon glaze, The Cake Slice Bakers

Southern Living Buttermilk Pie

June 26, 2017 by sblades Leave a Comment

It seems like everyone has their favorite buttermilk pie recipe. The one I’m using is Southern Living Buttermilk Pie, so how could it go wrong?

This is a wonderful lemony version that’s fairly easy to throw together with ingredients you probably already have in the fridge.

Even though it has quite a bit of lemon in it, the tang is mellowed somewhat by the buttermilk.

The combination is perfect to me, but if you prefer less lemon you can dial back the tablespoon of lemon zest to a teaspoon or so.

I love the texture of this pie. Don’t confuse buttermilk pie with chess pie. Chess pie doesn’t have buttermilk in it and it sometimes includes cornmeal for it’s texture. Even though I like both – check out my Chocolate Chess Pie recipe – buttermilk pie is a little higher on my pie-eating priority list.

You don’t have a pie-eating priority list? You really need one.

I think you’ll enjoy this Southern Living Buttermilk Pie. I made it two hours ago and half of it’s gone already – taste testing, you know.

Looking for some more great pie recipes? Here you go!

Divine Butterscotch Pie
Cook’s Country North Carolina Lemon Pie
Apple Cheesecake Crumble Pie

Southern Living Buttermilk Pie

Southern Buttermilk Pie

Yield: 8 - 10

Excellent version of buttermilk pie by Southern Living.

Ingredients

  • 1 unbaked pie crust
  • 1 1/2 C sugar
  • 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 C buttermilk
  • 1/2 C butter, melted
  • 1 tbsp loosely packed lemon zest
  • 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.  
  2. Whisk together sugar and flour in a large bowl.  Whisk eggs and the rest of the ingredients into the flour mixture; pour into your favorite unbaked pie crust.
  3. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until almost set, shielding the edges with aluminum foil after 15 minutes so the crust doesn't burn.  
  4. Cool on a wire rack at least an hour.

Notes

Tips and Stuff:

Mine baked for almost an hour, but watch it after about 40 minutes.  The middle will still be a bit wiggly when you take it out.  It will set up upon cooling.

I served the pie with fresh cherries.  It was a great combination.  

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 10 Serving Size: 1 slice
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 342Total Fat: 17gSaturated Fat: 9gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 81mgSodium: 235mgCarbohydrates: 45gFiber: 1gSugar: 32gProtein: 4g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

© sblades
Category: Pies/Pastry/Puddings

Filed Under: All Recipes, Pies/Pastry/Puddings Tagged With: buttermilk, buttermilk pie, Southern Living buttermilk pie, Southern recipes

Roasted Garlic and Buttermilk Salad Dressing

March 15, 2014 by sblades Leave a Comment

There are so many great recipe and food groups on the internet!  I stumbled across The Daring Kitchen and am so excited to be participating in their monthly challenges, both baking and cooking.

For March’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge, Ruth, Shelley and Sawsan asked us to totally veg out!  We made salads and dressings, letting the sky be the limit as we created new flavors and combinations that reflect our own unique tastes. 

I scoured recipes looking for one we would enjoy and would be different from the vinaigrettes I usually make (because they’re so quick and easy).

I found this Roasted Garlic and Buttermilk Salad Dressing in my way-back files (2007) from Juenessa at Food.com.   When I saw it had roasted garlic, I decided that it was the one to try!

Heads of Garlic

OK, no secrets here . I had never roasted garlic before, although it always sounded like a good idea.  Luckily the recipe includes instructions to do so and it came out great – creamy and almost sweet.

After blended together and refrigerated for awhile, the dressing became a creamy, delicious addition to our little romaine and chopped pecan salad. 

The parmesan gives it almost a Caesar dressing texture and the fresh lemon juice makes it perfect.  It goes beautifully with thick, crunchy romaine lettuce.  Thanks to Ruth, Shelley and Sawsan for expanding my dressing-making horizons!

Roasted Garlic and Buttermilk Salad Dressing

Roasted Garlic and Buttermilk Salad Dressing should definitely be on your salad dressing radar!

Roasted Garlic

Roasted Garlic and Buttermilk Salad Dressing

Yield: 1 3/4 Cups
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes

Outstanding creamy and delicious dressing.

Ingredients

  • 2 heads garlic
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 C mayonnaise
  • 1/2 C buttermilk
  • 7 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese
  • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 3/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • salt
  • pepper

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Cut top 1/2" off heads of garlic, exposing cloves. Place each on square of foil. Drizzle with oil, then enclose in foil. Place on oven rack; bake until garlic is tender, about 45 minutes. Open the foil and cool garlic slightly.
  3. Hold 1 head of garlic, cut side down, over medium bowl and squeeze, releasing roasted garlic pulp into bowl. Repeat with remaining garlic. Mash until smooth. 
  4. Whisk in mayonnaise, buttermilk, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and chill until ready to use, up to 2 days.

Notes

Tips and Stuff:

If you don't have fresh lemon juice, don't make this until you do.  Trust me on this one.

I took the garlic out after 40 minutes and it was perfect.

Even though I'm the salt queen, no salt was needed for this dressing.

Personal preference - I would probably half the parmesan cheese.

Those glands in the back of my jaw are tingling when I think of this dressing........

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 26 Serving Size: 1 serving
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 78Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 5mgSodium: 111mgCarbohydrates: 1gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 1g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

© sblades
Category: Soups, Stews, and Salads

Filed Under: All Recipes, Soups, Stews, and Salads Tagged With: buttermilk, buttermilk dressing, garlic, garlic salad dressing, homemade salad dressing, salad dressing, salads

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