In honour of Valentine’s Day I’m bringing back one of my most popular posts EVER here on Foodie with Family from the archives. That’s right, folks, Snickerdoodle Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream is back. Make this sweet for your sweetie.
This Snickerdoodle Cake is something special folks. A towering four layer Snickerdoodle cake made with cinnamon, vanilla, and butter is generously iced with a rich Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting Recipe for a cake that is the stuff of dreams. Make no mistake. This one is indulgent and it is worth it!
Here is the cake that upended my tidy little world. This is a Snickerdoodle Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting Recipe.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not fond of cake or frosting. (Here and here, for starters…) As a little girl, I watched “Pollyanna” over and over. I’m talking about the original nineteen-sixty Disney film. It was one of the twenty five movies available for rental in the small movie section of the Glen’s Market in Gaylord, Michigan where we shopped. Despite my dislike for cake, I dreamed of the giant slab of cake she scored at the fair. That towering layer cake called to me like no other cake could. And for the most of my life, I resigned myself to the fact that while that Pollyanna cake looked so good, no cake measured up to the promise it offered. That is still true except. for. this. cake. And who do I blame thank for this earth shaker? My friend, Krysta. She, without a word, sent me this link. No word of warning, no heads-up. No. Just a link. She knows my feelings on snickerdoodles so she sent it my way. She didn’t know it, but she delivered my Pollyanna cake to me.
All of a sudden, in my brain at least, I was Hayley Mills wandering around a small town fair with the world’s largest slice of layer cake, in this case, Snickerdoodle Cake and a sunny disposition. I might’ve even belted out the National Anthem and poked at the little prism dangling in my kitchen window. It was as good as I thought it would be.
The Snickerdoodle Cake itself is a cinnamon vanilla butter cake. (I died a little bit just typing that…) It is moist, it is cinnamon-y. I’ve never had a cake like that. It is layered around and slathered with the only buttercream I have ever craved in my life; brown sugar cinnamon butter cream. (A little more dead now…) It is smooth yet still crunchy with sugar. It has little bursts of brown sugar and cinnamon and it is smoothed out with half and oh-my-goodness half. People. The buttercream. It must be stopped. CLICK HERE for the Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting Recipe.
Who’s in?
Before you pop over to the recipe for the Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream and rub your eyes and question me, that is not a typo. Yes, there really ARE 4 1/2 sticks of butter in the buttercream. I told you it must be stopped.
Cook’s Tips
Here are some tried and true cake baking and decorating tips to help you get the most polished finished product before you polish off your finished product.
-To butter two pans easily, smear the pans with the butter wrappers you used for the cake itself (use more soft butter if necessary.) *If you choose to use parchment, too, butter under AND over the parchment for easiest release.
-To flour those pans neatly, toss 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour into one pan, swirl it around over the second pan then tap the excess into the second pan. Repeat the process with the second pan, then tap the excess into the garbage.
-When dividing cake batter between pans, use a scale to get them as close to even as possible. No scale? Scoop it in with a measuring cup.
-Smooth the top of the cake batter into the pan and tap firmly on the counter several times before baking to settle the batter evenly.
-Rotate pans front to back and side to side mid way through baking.
-Cool the cakes COMPLETELY before slicing into layers. Do not hurry this or you will regret it immensely while you cry over your broken cake.
-Before slicing your cooled cakes into layers, use a large serrated knife to even up the top of the cake. (In other words, to slice off any dome that formed while baking.)
-Before you move your cake to the plate you’ll use to frost and serve it, lay four strips of parchment or waxed paper around the edges. Center the cake on the parchment strips. This will help you frost the cake rather than the plate. When you’re done frosting, pull the strips straight away from the cake. Ta da! Professionally done. Go you!
-Make sure each layer of frosting/cake is level before adding another level. It is much easier to adjust as you go along than to try to fix everything with frosting.
-When the cake is assembled, refrigerate for at least an hour (preferably more) before attempting to slice into wedges. If you skip this step, the cake is likely to shift around on the frosting and look like it was thrown together by drunken monkeys.
-If you forget all of these steps it really won’t matter because you’ll still have this cake. Pour yourself a nice hot cup of coffee or tea and enjoy it anyway!
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Snickerdoodle Cake
Rate RecipeIngredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 sticks butter 8 ounces by weight, softened to room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups fine or superfine sugar
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk warmed to room temperature
- 1 batch of Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Optional:
- Whole cinnamon sticks for garnish
Instructions
To Bake the Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Butter and flour two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and pale in colour.
- Beat the eggs in one at a time, fully incorporating each egg and scraping down the bowl between each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
- Add about 1/3 of the milk, beat to incorporate, then 1/3 of the flour, again beating to incorporate.
- Repeat this process, scraping down the bowl as necessary, until all of the milk and flour are added and mixed in evenly.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and bake, rotating midway through, for about 35 minutes or until the cake tests done.
- Let the cakes cool in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes before turning out onto the racks to finish cooling.
To Assemble and Frost the Cake:
- Level out your cooled cakes and cut each into two even layers.
- Place one layer on a cake plate then add a layer of buttercream, spreading to the edges and evening out as you go. Repeat with the remaining layers.
- Frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining buttercream.
- If desired, garnish the top of the cake with whole cinnamon sticks.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before slicing.
- Store leftovers tightly covered in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Originally published August 26, 2011.
Reader's Thoughts...
Amanda says
Hey – I want to make this…but for cupcakes – have you tried that? I’m assuming it makes 24-30 of them…probably use the same amount of frosting? What about cooking time??
Rebecca says
Hi Amanda- I have not tried making cupcakes. A few of the folks in the comments have (and have left directions for doing it the way they did it.) The frosting makes a ton, so you could probably get away with reducing the frosting a bit. 🙂
Wendy says
Thanks Rebecca, I’ll try the website idea. The UK only offers self-raising, plain and strong flour (for bread making).
Wendy says
Thanks Rebecca. I’m sorry I have another question – they don’t have ‘cake flour’ in the UK, what would be the best substitute do you know?
Rebecca says
How about pastry flour? If pastry flour isn’t available, you can try this great tutorial from Joy the Baker on making your own cake flour:
http://joythebaker.com/2009/09/how-to-make-cake-flour/
Wendy says
I’m in the UK and have just found this recipe which I’d love to make for my husband’s birthday next week. For those of use who are ‘overseas’, what is the weight for the butter? We can’t get butter sticks, it only comes in a 250g (8oz) block. Sorry, another question, should it be unsalted butter?
Rebecca says
Hi Wendy! A stick of butter here in the US is 4 ounces or roughly 125 grams. I hope that helps! And regarding the salted or unsalted question, it’s a matter of preference. I prefer to use unsalted butter in my baking, but either will be delicious. Happy Birthday to your husband and Happy Baking to you!
Morgan says
Wait a minute. Earlier, Sophia asked if the icing called for 4 1/2 sticks or 4 half-sticks, and you told her 4 1/2 sticks. Now you are telling Wendy from the UK that a “stick” in the US is 4 oz. It used to be that all sticks of butter were 8 oz and that is typically what a “stick” means in a recipe. When Sophia asked about “half-sticks”, surely she was referring to the 4-oz sticks that are the most common size now. So now you may want to edit the recipe to include the exact ounces to clear up any ambiguity. I used 4 1/2 whole sticks (9 half-sticks) or a total of 38 oz and that really is a LOT of butter. But it came out amazing. I imagine that using the same amount of sugar but half the butter would mean that the icing would be thicker and loads sweeter (and it is plenty sweet as it is). Anyway thanks for this awesome death-on-a-plate recipe and I enjoyed your witty preface to it.
Rebecca says
Duly noted and clarified. And yes, it IS a lot of butter. 🙂
Georgia says
A regular box of butter that contains 4 sticks is 1 pound. One pound is 16 oz, Their is no possible way a regular stick of butter is 8oz because that would mean you would only get 2 sticks in a pack!!! There for 4 regular sticks of butter is 4oz… think about it 2 sticks is a cup, one cup = 8oz half a cup = 4oz
diane says
I made this cake as a surprise for my husband. He came into the kitchen and tried to look at the recipe. I chased him out. Then, an hour later, he came back in and saw the two layers cooling on the rack. He said, “This is the surprise?” I said “Wait til it’s done.” After I assembled it, I gave him the first slice. You should’ve seen his face at the first taste. He loved it! He loves snickerdoodles!
It was pretty easy to make. I substituted a cinnamon cream cheese frosting for the buttercream. I sprinkled the top with chopped pecans. it was ssooooooo good. A fabulous recipe, four stars!
Nicole says
This looks fantastic but I’d like to make a single layer cake… any suggestions on cutting back on ingredients?
Brooke says
Thank you so much for this recipe! I made this cake last night to take into work today and it was absolutely DELICIOUS. I did fill it with a cinnamon cream cheese buttercream (but cut back a touch on the sugar), and frosted the outside with the frosting here- SO many compliments! However, my frosting came out far, far darker than the one in the picture- the cinnamon turned it the color of brown sugar. It almost looks like there is no cinnamon in the cake that’s pictured! Any tricks for keeping the frosting nice and white(ish)?
Pansy Hodges says
The cakes were dense, thin, and sort of a pinkish tinted color, and the icing was pretty dark. I am thinking that next time I will add more liquid to my icing as it was probably too stiff.
Molly says
I made this recipe for one of friends at college’s birthday and everyone loved it. Everyone has been talking about it since. I didn’t use as much powder sugar (like 4-5 cups) because I wanted the frosting to have a lot of flavor and it turned out delicious. People were licking the frosting of the plates. Thanks so much for sharing!
Miri says
This cake was pretty good (I’m a sucker for snicker doodles), but the sugar! I had to cut the sugar in half for the frosting. Still turned our delicious! 🙂
Kate says
WOW! The icing sounds delicious! 🙂
Patricia says
I thought it was delicious but the buttercream was too sweet for me. I frosted my cake just like the picture so went back and took all outter frosting off.
Arlene says
This cake is out of this world!! I’m a chocolate lover of cakes, but I also love cinnamon. If your cake doesn’t rise properly, it’s important to make sure your flours and baking powder are fresh. Another thought is where you live. Different altitudes change baking procedures. Ex. Denver(The mile high city) and New York (sea level). As for baking it and keeping it in the frig overnight that’s fine. For you have to store the left overs in the frig anyway. What you could do is make your frosting first and place that in the refrigerator overnight. Make your cake that night and cover it after you bake it and prepare the rest the next day. This is definitely not a summertime cake. I’ve made other cakes that have butter in the icing and found that in warm weather they ended up sliding this way and that way..Hope this hints were helpful…All in all a definite keeper.
Kate says
I just wanted to say thanks so much for posting this. My friend wanted a snickerdoodle cake for her birthday and I’d never even heard of such a thing. Luckily, I found this site and it turned out great.
Torte says
Great recipe. I just adore cinnamon.
jaerodriguez says
So, I loved loved loved the cake. I did have an issue with the bake time, I made it twice, the first time I baked around 45 minutes and once layer was completely not done in the middle. The second time I backed closer to an hour and they were completely cooked. I have an oven thermometer so I’m not sure why this happened. I also had an issue with icing the cake, it was very tender and fell apart into the icing, the icing pulled chunks of cake off. I am thinking that next time I will add more liquid to my icing as it was probably too stiff. After all the trouble I went through I was kind of ready to write this cake off, until I tasted it!! WOW. I love it! It’s staying in my recipe box and I’m sure I will make it many, many more times.
Fatima says
My cake did not rise and it was doughy even though I followed the recipe and pulled it out of the oven when it was ready. The ingredients I used were fresh. My buttercream was not thick enough and when I was trying to put some around the cake, it would melt off. I was so excited to try this recipe for the Christmas Eve dinner we host every year. I am glad I have a backup plan. Any ideas of what went wrong?
Josefa Coffey says
Just trying to think of the logistics unless I do this tomorrow along with the other millions of things on my list. It was okay if you think about it being like a snickerdoodle, which has the crunchy sugar all over it, but I was wondering if I did something wrong. Think I will be doing the baking for the next “family” dinner.
Allyson says
I tried this recipie today but made cupcakes instead. I followed the recipie exactly but my cupcakes came out dry. Any suggestions on why this happened and how to prevent it next time?
Thanks!
Sarah says
This looks gorgeous, but I really wanted to say WOW! How cool to find somebody from that area of Michigan! My family is from Flint and we used to camp and trout fish in Gaylord and we would always shop for supplies at Glen’s. So cool!