Butter pecan cake

It’s one of my favorite things to experiment with new flavors and recipes, especially when it comes to cakes. When people think of layer cakes they usually think of white, yellow, and/or chocolate. Sometimes carrot or lemon come to mind. There are so many great recipes out there for different cakes.

Ingredients
1¼ cup butter, softened, divided
2 cups chopped pecans
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup milk

FROSTING:
2 pkgs (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 pkg (2 lbs) confectioners’ sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 to 3 Tb milk, as necessary
extra chopped pecans for garnish, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour three 9″ round cake pans.
In a medium heavy skillet, melt ¼ butter over medium heat. Add pecans; cook until toasted and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Spread across sheet of foil to cool.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine; set aside.
In a separate large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the flour (flour in 3 parts, milk in 2). Fold in toasted pecans.
Divide between cake pans and bake 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack before removing from pans. Cool completely.

FOR FROSTING:

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla. Beat in enough milk, as necessary, to achieve spreading consistency. Frost cake. Store in refrigerator.
Notes: You may not need to add any milk to the frosting if it is already soft enough.

NOTE: The cake batter itself seems to be based off the old-fashioned 1-2-3-4 cake (1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, and 4 eggs). That is if you don’t count the extra ¼ cup of butter used to toast the nuts. I wasn’t completely impressed with it, but I didn’t think it was bad (a tad dry). I will say though, if you have a favorite white or yellow cake recipe, you should use that instead and then follow the same step for making the toasted butter pecans, add them in, and absolutely use this frosting recipe. If you want to use your own TWO layer recipe instead of a three, then you’ll need to use less pecans, maybe just 1¼ cups would be perfect.