Butter Pecan Cake

So back in February I made a cake for my hubby's birthday. I got a lot of feedback from friends and family who wanted the recipe. I'm such a bad person because I never got back with them and gave them the recipe. Sorry guys, but here it is, FINALLY!

 

One of my favorite things to do is bake cakes! I'm not good at decorating them but they taste good and I guess that is all that matters, well at least for the hubby anyways! So this year for my husband's birthday I wanted to make a new cake, a cake I hadn't made before. I couldn't come up with anything. Then it hit me....an idea! When we moved to our new house we inherited all these pecan trees. My husband's new favorite snack is pecans. So that gave me the idea to make a butter pecan cake, something special just for him. How many of you love butter pecan ice cream? It was one of my Mom's favorite flavors of ice cream and that's why the idea popped into my head, memories :)

 

So anyways off to make a recipe. If you bake a lot of cakes you will began to notice that the main ingredients of cakes are all about the same. It's normally about 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 2-4 eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons of baking powder or soda or 1 teaspoon of each, 1/2-1 teaspoon of salt, and then milk. Milk kinda ranges but I think about 1 cup of milk or buttermilk is probably the most average amount of milk in a cake.

 

Now to come up with the recipe using those basic ingredients. Here's the recipe I came up with:

 

BUTTER PECAN CAKE

1-1/2 cup of butter at room temperature (another 1/2 cup to toast the pecans)

2 cups of sugar

1/2 cup of packed brown sugar (another 1/2 cup to toast the pecans)

4 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2-1/2 cups of pecans

 

The frosting was a little bit more difficult to come up with because I normally like to go with heavy cream but I decided to use evaporated milk because it's heavier in taste and gives off more of a caramelized/toasted taste and that's what I was going for with the pecans. Plus I wanted to double the size of frosting because I was making 3 layers and evaporated milk goes a lot further than heavy cream.

 

Here is the recipe I came up with for the frosting, to be honest I'm not sure I enjoyed it with this cake, I might go for more of a cream cheese frosting in the future but it was still yummy :)

 

Butter Pecan Frosting

1 cup of salted butter, at room temperature

6 cups of confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup of evaporated milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

 

I also made a topping with this cake and here's the topping recipe

 

Topping

1 cup of light corn syrup

1 cup of packed brown syrup

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract ( I always use more than 2 tsp. because I can never get enough vanilla but this is probably the right amount to use)

 

NOW THE DIRECTIONS!

 

*Preheat your oven to 350°

 

* Melt 1/2 cup of butter in your microwave and add 1/2 cup of brown sugar to the melted butter. Then add your pecans. Place them on a cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes or until they are toasted. Make sure to keep and eye on them and stir often. (If you want you can sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar over the top of them too).

 

*In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. (FLOUR MIXTURE)

 

*In a large bowl, cream together your sugars and butter, beat until fluffy and light. Add your eggs one at a time, beating after each of them and then add your vanilla. Next beat in your flour mixture to the cream mixture (about 1 cup at a time) adding a little milk with each addition. Stir in 1-1/4 cup of the toasted pecans.

 

*Pour into 3 greased and floured 9-inch round baking pans.

*Bake at 350° for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

*Cool completely before removing them from your pans.

 

*For the frosting, beat the butter. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar (about 1 cup at a time) until creamed. Add your evaporated milk and vanilla and beat until smooth. ( I kinda guessed at the measurements for the frosting because I eyeballed it. So you may need to add either more evaporated milk or confectioners' sugar). Stir in remaining pecans and spread onto each layer of cake!

 

*For the topping I placed 1 cup of corn syrup, 1 cup of brown sugar, and the vanilla in a sauce pan and cooked over medium heat. Make sure to stir frequently, until sugar dissolves and comes to a slight boil. Remove from heat.

 

*I then poured it over the cake but it ruined the cake. The topping was good but it took away the taste of the cake and was really sweet. Next time I make this cake I will still make the topping but have it on the side so you can pour the amount you want onto your own slice of cake.

 

I had one happy husband and he said it was his favorite cake! I'm glad I could make him happy because he really could careless about birthday gifts... it's the cake he wants. If you have a hubby I'm sure sweets are the way to his heart too! I still think I need to make adjustments to the recipe to make it just perfect, but for now, it is still one yummy cake! Hope you enjoy it!

 

If you make this cake leave me some feedback on what you think! Sorry for such a long post but I hope the recipe is worth it! I know this recipe is a little confusing so if you have any questions let me know.

For a printable version of  this Butter Pecan Recipe click here. P.S. It is also a more understandable version of this cake :)