brown butter buttermilk cake
tbh the best cake you could ask for.
I’m a big fan of brown butter- how could you not be? I use it so often that I’ll just brown a few sticks, cool it down in a metal bowl to room temp before storing in the fridge until I need it. How could you not want to keep that nutty goodness on hand at all times?? It’s also for consistency’s sake, because as you brown butter the water is evaporating while the milk solids are browning- which leads to inconsistent butter weights depending on when you pull the butter from the heat.
So for this recipe, the butter you’re measuring out is already browned and not regular butter you’re going to brown. Also allowing the brown butter to solidify and come back to room temp it will heave a little more structure to it, making it easier to cream with the sugar. It’ll actually incorporate in some air and get fluffy, otherwise too hot brown butter just melts sugar and becomes a weird grainy mess. Which can lead to a greasy-ish feel to the cake… which i’m personally not a fan of.
This recipe makes 3-6” cake layers or 2-8” cake layers. The cake works well anytime you’d normally use vanilla cake to add a little depth of flavor.
Ingredients:
125 grams brown butter- room temp (see intro if you skipped it…)
220 grams sugar
100 grams egg whites, room temp (about 3 large egg white, but weigh it just to be sure!!)
220 grams all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
160 grams buttermilk
35 grams canola oil
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 330F.
Line your desired size of cake pan with parchment circles (or cut your own).
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the brown butter and sugar until fluffy and pale in color on medium speed.
Meanwhile whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt to evenly disperse the ingredients. Set aside.
Combine the buttermilk, canola oil and vanilla. Set aside.
Once the butter sugar mixture is fluffy add in the egg whites one at a time on medium speed. Stop the mixer to scrape the bowl to ensure everything is being incorporated. Mix for 10 ten seconds after the scraping.
Stop the mixer. Add in 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Start the mixer again on low and stream in 1/2 of the the buttermilk mix. Stop the mixer to scrape down the bowl. Add the next 1/3 of the dries and once again start the mixer on low while streaming in the second 1/2 of the liquids. Once incorporated stop and scrape the mixer before adding the last 1/3 of the dries.
Mix until just about incorporated- there should be a few dry pockets.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and using a rubber spatula fold in the remaining dries. This helps to ensure you don’t over mix the batter.
Weigh your batter into your pans. For 3- 6” pans its 285 grams per pan for 2- 8” pans its 430 grams per pan. Smooth out the batter with a small off-set spatula.
Bake your cake layers for 25-30 minutes (6” layers) or 30-40 minutes (8” layers). The cake should spring back when tapped in the center or a tooth pick inserted to the center of the cake should come out with a few crumbs. If you’re a real cake nerd- you’ll temp it… a perfectly baked cake should register 205F.
Allow your cake layers to cool completely before filling and frosting.
*wrap your cakes in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge to firm up before you fill and frost your final cake- it makes the cake much easier to work with!!*
Hi there! What kind of salt are you using in this recipe? Thank you!
Genius idea of making brown butter in a larger batch!! You know how the brown butter milk solids fall to the bottom as it cools? I wonder how making it in bigger batches allows for those nutty milk solids in every recipe yield? Or does it not matter? Am i making sense?