This butterscotch cake is rich and airy, with a chocolate ganache that pairs perfectly with the cake recipe.
In a hurry? Click here to jump straight to the recipe!
Ummm….okay. Today is momentous. And totally deserving of a cake. Because today is my ONE YEAR BLOG-AVERSARY! Which would be awesome enough. Except that today is ALSO my 100th blog post. WHAT? Crazy. And it wasn’t even totally on purpose. I only realized that the anniversary and the 100th post would coincide about two weeks ago, at which point I figured hey, let’s run with it.
There really isn’t a good way to sum up all of the feelings that come with celebrating a whole year of blogging. It’s kind of crazy – when I started, I was worried that I’d run out of recipes to share pretty quickly. But 1 year and 100 posts in, I’m full of more ideas for new dishes than ever before. This blog has done so much for me, in so many unexpected ways. And I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring!
I thought for a few days about what I should say in this post. The way I saw it, I had one of three choices.
One: Get all sappy and emotional.
Two: Attempt to share “wisdom”.
Three: Bake myself a cake.
Guess which one I picked?
But seriously. In the “emotional and sappy” category, I’ll say this: I love blogging. I love the opportunities it’s given me and am so grateful for the connections I’ve made and the things I’ve learned.
In the “wisdom” category? If you’re a new blogger, all I can say is this: keep going. You will have days where you are so desperate to get a post up that you hate your photos but use them anyway. You’ll have days where zero people look at your website, and days where you get excited about 12 hits (and then realize they were all you. Or your mom). You will have days where all you want to do is eat pizza, and that makes you feel ridiculously uncreative. There will be days where blogging feels like a lot of work, and where you feel like the whole thing is a waste of time. But you will also have days when people you haven’t talked to in years run into you and tell you how much they love your site. You’ll have days where a picture hits Foodgawker at just the right time and you top 1,000 views for the first time ever. And you will FREAK. OUT.
So, let me just say this to all of you: thanks. Thanks for reading everyday, for leaving comments, and for making me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. Thank you especially to the wonderful partners at The Sustainable Seafood Blog Project, who have helped create something I am so very proud of. We all deserve to celebrate. And I think we should celebrate with this cake. I think it may just be the best cake I’ve ever made. And it’s also FAN FREAKING TASTIC in cupcake form. I’m serious. I make a LOT of cake. And it’s generally very well received. But THIS cake? I think that THIS cake is the hum-dinger. The End-All, Be-All cake. The one cake to rule them all. I’m serious. I actually made it twice in two days because I was convinced that the first time I made it was a fluke. But no. It was awesome. BOTH TIMES. I’m dying. I think I’m going to go get another piece right now. And have myself a little blog-aversary party. (PS, fellow bloggers – is there a consensus on how we spell blog-aversary? bloggiversary? blogversary? I just took a shot in the dark here. But I’m cool with it). Whatever. MAKE THIS CAKE.
- 1 cup Butterscotch chips
- 5 Tbsp. butter, room temperature
- 1 and ½ cups flour
- ½ cup plus 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- ½ cup milk
- 2 egg whites
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- ¾ cup Butterscotch chips
- 1 Tbsp. butter (temperature doesn't matter)
- 1 and ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Melt butterscotch chips and 1 Tbsp. of the butter together in a double boiler. Butterscotch chips on their own won't melt the way chocolate does - this mixture will reach a consistency more like dough, as seen here:
- Set aside melted butterscotch.
- Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Add remaining 4 Tbsp. of room temperature butter to the stand mixer and beat to incorporate.
- Add ¼ cup of the milk to mixture and mix until batter resembles coarse biscuit dough, about 1 minute.
- Whisk egg whites and vanilla into the remaining ¼ cup milk. Add this mixture to the stand mixer bowl in thirds, beating between each addition.
- Add the melted butterscotch to the batter in thirds, again beating between each addition.
- Pour batter into 2 buttered and floured 6-inch cake pans (you could also make one 8" cake)
- Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Melt chocolate, butterscotch chips, and butter together in a double boiler until smooth.
- Remove from heat and let cool 5-10 minutes.
- Spread some ganache between layers of your butterscotch cake and stack the layers. Pour remaining ganache over top of cake and spread as desired.
Adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's White Chocolate Cake Recipe in The Cake Bible
Can I substitute butter with oil? Or half butter and half oil? I baked this cake several times but everytime it’s turned out dry so just wanted to know that can use oil or something else for little extra moisture. Thank you
You can certainly sub some oil for the butter! You can also adjust the amount of flour if it’s turning out dry – because the flour measurements are called for in cups, the actual weight of flour can vary depending on who’s doing the measuring, which can occasionally affect the final texture of the recipe. I measure my flour by scooping and leveling, so 1 cup of flour for me may be lighter than 1 cup of flour that’s dipped straight into a bag or bin. Hope that helps!
Butterscotch is my favorite flavor and I love to eat butterscotch cake. Thanks for sharing this yummy and delicious recipe.
I made this cake in a competition with a friend (why not?) and it turned out AMAZING. I doubled the recipe and made two eight-by-eight inch caked which i layered with the ganache. I will say the ganache was a bit crunchy and was rather hard to mix, but once everything was incorporated it was great. The crunch just added more flavor. I also made some simple buttercream frosting and piped flowers on top for decoration, which just added a presentation touch but it was nice without them as well. Thanks for the recipe!
ps. I would post a picture but it won’t let me so never mind
I’m so happy you liked it! The crunch in the ganache may have been due to the brand of butterscotch chips – some varieties melt more easily than others, but I’m glad it still tasted good. Thanks for letting me know how it turned out! (PS – I’d still love to see a photo! You can tag me on social media or just shoot me an email if you’d like to share!)
This cake was a bit of a disaster when I tried to make it. For ‘butterscotch chips’ I used the butterscotch lollies you can get, and the ganache went horrific and solid and wouldn’t spread, I had to roll it out, and the butterscotch wouldn’t incorporate into the cake batter. I was very disappointed with this.
Hi Grace, I’m so sorry the cake didn’t work out! If you try it again, I would recommend using butterscotch chips as listed in the recipe as opposed to butterscotch lollies.
So I was looking for a new recipe to bake some halloween cupcakes and this looks like d perfect shade of halloween orange.I’m very bias towards yellow cakes. They r so borng looking to me..plus my fam eats chocolate only . lol, ..will try it out this wk n see how it comes out n if I can convert d chocolate lovers lol
Hi Jessie, congrats on your 100th blogs… also, can you please help me with a moist chocolate cake recipe pls,.. i really wanted to surprise my kids with chocolatey cake because they are a big fan of it. with regards to using butter, can i replace it with vegetable oil instead and whats the proportion.? thank u
Your cake recipe is soooooo amazing. Have made it twice already. And every time it was throughly luved by all who ate it.
i had to make only 1 minor change, instead of melting the butterscotch chips i had to add them directly as the ones i get here just refuse to melt. Lol.
But cos of that it gave the cake a lovely crunch.
Thanks for the recipe
I’m so glad you like it! I think it would be just as tasty with butterscotch chip chunks! I’ve had good luck with the Nestle brand of butterscotch chips as far as melting goes. Thanks for letting me know how the cake turned out!
Congratulations!! 100 blogs, 1 year! And your cake looks terrific!!
Wow … makes my mouth water just looking at the photos. Can hardly wait to try it myself. Also, congrats on the year anniversary of your blog. Sensational.
this cake looks delish. I love the color!
Fantastic Fantastic Fantastic (1-year, 100th post, Cake)
CONGRATULATIONS! What an accomplishment. I love the photos, recipes, and witty text. Keep it up.
I will definitely try this cake. For you to say this about a cake besides the amazing chocolate recipe means it is truly amazing.