Kentucky Butter Cake!

  

The Kentucky Butter Cake is pretty much just what the name says it is.  It's a really good buttery pound cake that gets kicked up another notch, as we in Kentucky are known for doing, by adding a buttery glaze to it.

Now I know most areas have pound cakes of various types...sour cream, cream cheese, but in Kentucky we don't mess around, we just go big on the butter and sugar.

This isn't a complicated cake or a flamboyantly beautiful cake.  It's not stacked to the ceiling or frosted with a really fantastic 7 minute frosting that only the best cooks even attempt. However, it's a Kentucky gem.

I have been meaning to make this cake for some time now, well ever since I started this blog, nine months ago, but it just kept getting pushed to the back burner for some reason.  Then the other day, a sweet lady wrote to me and said she was searching for a certain type of butter cake that she wanted to make for a friend of hers who was ill.

 His grandmother used to make it for him years ago. She said she had tried with no success several times and she just could not figure out what he wanted.

 So I asked her to ask him what type of pan it was baked in and she said he pulled out her Bundt pan.   Hmmm...I thought I might know the answer, so I asked her where he was from or actually where grandmother was from, and she said Central Kentucky.

That did it!  I knew he was talking about the Kentucky butter cake.  So, I decided I needed to make this and post it so this gentleman could get his Kentucky butter cake when he gets out of the hospital this time.   I hope he enjoys it!

 Here is what you will need for this cake:

1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. butter flavoring (optional) I used Watkins

Glaze
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 tsp. butter flavoring (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in buttermilk, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and butter flavoring if you are using it.  Mix well, but don't over mix. 

Pour into a Bundt pan or a tube pan that has been liberally sprayed with nonstick spray for baking that contains flour or butter and flour the pan.  Do this very well cover all or this cake might stick.

Place in the oven for 60-65 minutes.  A pick inserted in the middle should come out clean.

To make the glaze, melt the butter with the sugar and water over low heat just until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.  Add the vanilla and the butter flavoring. 

With a wooden skewer or a fork with large tines, poke holes in the cake while it's still in the pan. Slowly pour the warm glaze over the cake.  It will gradually settle into the cake completely.  Let the cake sit in the pan and cool.  When it's cool, run a sharp knife around the edges of the pan just to loosen it.  Do the center of the pan also. 

Gently turn the cake out onto a cake plate.

Kentucky Butter Cake!  It's just wonderful!!!