How to Make a Rich Butter Pecan Cake With Toasted Buttery Pecans

Hi, I'm John Kennell. Today in my kitchen we will prepare a delicious and incredible butter pecan cake. So, let's begin. First of all, butter over medium heat. We put the oil and put it on the stove. You should have 1.5 cups or 180 g of chopped pecans ready. Once the butter has melted, add the nuts: we are essentially frying them in butter to get wonderful buttery nuts for our cake. We will pour them out and stir them often. You need to fry them for 5 to 8 minutes or until cooked. They will become fragrant and darken. Just stir them constantly. Do not leave them unattended, as the smaller pieces, especially around

the edges of the pan, will start to burn. Okay. They were nicely toasted. I removed them from the heat and now you can transfer them to a bowl to cool completely. Good. Toasted, but not burnt. Very oily. Don't leave them in the pan, as the residual heat can burn them, like when Set them aside and now we'll move on to the dough. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and prepare three 23- centimeter molds. This means greasing them well with oil or butter and lining the bottom of each with parchment. In a large bowl, add flour: 4 and 1/4 cups or 540 g of wheat flour. The cake is large, so you need a lot of flour.

Buttered pecan was my father's favorite ice cream flavor, and it's quite delicious. Crunchy, slightly salty, sweet, creamy. This cake combines all of that. It is delicious. For fluffiness, add 2.5 tsp. baking powder. One. Two. And half a spoon. Three- quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda-half and a quarter. And for contrast-1 tsp. salt. Take a whisk. We don't need scales anymore, we'll just mix it all up. It is necessary that all the baking powders are well distributed. And if you want the best cake, I highly recommend buying a kitchen scale. They make life much easier.

Good. Set that aside, now grab a large bowl and a hand mixer or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Now I add 1 and 1/4 cups of unsalted butter at room temperature to the bowl of a stand mixer. So, it's not difficult at all. We want it to mix well, but not melt. It is soft. I also add 2 and a half cups, or 500 g, of granulated sugar. Sugar is much easier to measure with a measuring cup. It doesn't become airy like flour. Attach the paddle attachment and mix on medium speed for 4-5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. This is a very important step in your recipe. You are infusing the butter and sugar with air, and this will make your cake more tender and fluffy. While it's mixing, I'll crack five large room

temperature eggs into a separate bowl. I just want to make sure that no shell gets into the cake because that's not the crunch I want. Everything is fine. Light, fluffy. It looks like a beautiful sweet cloud. I scrape the sides of the bowl using the same spatula I used for the pecans, but it's no big deal. We'll add the pecans here later. By the way, if you like my videos, click the subscribe button. Two new recipes are released every week. While mixing on medium or low speed, add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times. Let the first egg mix in before

adding the next. This will provide you with a wonderful, uniform dough. If you just poured all the eggs in at once, you would end up with a grainy, cottage cheese-like mass and the cake would n't be as tasty. Three. Halfway through the process, I will clean the sides of the bowl. It looks nice and golden on the inside and quite light on the outside. Okay, egg number four. And my last egg. Anyone from the South will remind you that pecan pie is a Southern recipe. Pecans are native to America, so we have many great recipes with them. And everyone else had to catch up. All eggs have been added. Now I'm going to add a tablespoon of vanilla.

I want to show you the consistency. It's simply luxurious. It looks so beautiful. Very smooth. So, I'm cleaning for the last time. Well, I'll clean it again. Now we will mix at the lowest speed. This mixer is new. It has very low speeds, which is cool. Alternate the flour mixture in three stages with 1 and 1/4 cups of buttermilk. Add a third of the flour. Half an oil lamp. Another third of flour. The rest of the butter dish. And the rest of the flour. And this, of course, is the stage where you shouldn't mix for too long. So I recommend mixing until almost smooth, then stopping because we still

need to add the pecans. Do n't think I forgot. Now we can add our room temperature pecans and all that butter. Good. Mix on low speed for just a few seconds. Mhm. This smells so delicious. I can't even convey it. Well, I can tell you, but you won't believe it. It seems like it's almost mixed in, so I'm going to stop now, grab a spatula, clean the sides of the mouse, and just look for areas that are n't mixed as well as I'd like, or where there's too much pecan or not enough. Yes, I see one area where there is a little flour. Here is an area where there are few nuts. That's why we do it manually. Now you can evenly distribute the dough between the three molds. I'll use a scale, but you can do it by eye. 1158 1196 1176 Now, using a curved spatula,

we'll smooth this out into nice even cake layers that will bake up beautifully and not just be a pile of batter. They will flatten out a bit in the oven on their own, but it's worth giving the cakes the best possible start. And since we want this cake to come together nicely and be as tender as possible, I recommend baking it with pastry ribbons. These are damp cloth strips that you wrap around a cake pan, they help the cakes bake evenly. They also make the edges very soft and delicate. So you won't have a dome-shaped cake with crispy edges. You can click here to watch a video about pastry ribbons: how to use them and even how to make your own. I soaked my fabric strips, squeezed out the excess water so they stayed damp.

Wrap them around the baking pans and tighten firmly. Like wet Easter cakes. My butter and pecan tortillas are ready for the oven. At degrees for 25-30 minutes. Then let them rest in the tins and cool before turning them out onto a wire rack. They need to rest for 20 minutes. They smell so nice. So let's make a wonderful cream cheese cream. I need 1.5 cups or 339g of unsalted butter at room temperature. This is a very simple cream, but it is quite luxurious and delicious. The main thing is not just to mix everything in the right proportion. You can get such a silky, wonderful texture that just melts in your mouth if you do it right. I also need two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese. This is also softened, so it's at a nice room temperature. The

recipe calls for exactly half a teaspoon of salt, but I like it saltier, so I'll add a little more. It's entirely up to you. When you make a sweet glaze, you want to have a nice contrast with the salt. This creates a balance, a certain play of flavors, and helps you better experience everything else. But a quarter teaspoon is a safe minimum. Attach the paddle attachment and mix on medium speed for about a minute until the mixture is smooth and creamy. It's almost mixed in, but it never hurts to gather everything up the sides and scrape it off the bottom of the bowl. I sifted 7 cups of powdered sugar. This is 840 grams. But before I add it, I want to make sure everything is mixed well.

OK. Now you can gradually add it. Maybe one glass at a time. The thing is, you can't just throw everything into the mixer. I've done this before and it creates a mess. And now we will mix on low speed. You can add gradually, or stop the mixer, open it, and add it one glass at a time. Today we will flavor this with vanilla extract. However, when I think of pecan, it seems to me to be close to rum and raisins, like in the ice cream department. So, if you want, you can replace the vanilla with dark rum or even bourbon. This will add a nice depth of flavor. In fact, if you want to really splurge, you can make a syrup of equal parts sugar and water, then add another part. So, one part sugar, one part water, and one part rum, like a good dark rum or bourbon. And then

grease the cakes with it before assembling the cake. This will be great. I agree that this is a great cake. It's delicious, but if you like other flavors, make it special. Personalize it. Recipes are not something immutable. These are just guidelines for making something delicious. So you can always improvise a little and substitute ingredients. The cake won't explode. Here, halfway through, you see what a silky texture it now is. It's the sugar that dissolves and really changes the texture. You see the difference between the top and the bottom, where it's mixed and where it's not yet.

OK. The last portion of sugar. I love it when they use cream cheese for the cream. It is so silky and soft. It has a wonderful light flavor. But the main thing is that it is much softer than butter. So the cream turns out a little thinner. And he looks good, to me. But it can be a little tricky when assembling the cake. So we'll talk about that when we get to the build phase. Everything was mixed well. Now add a teaspoon of vanilla or your favorite flavoring. I want to stop the mixer and show you. You can look at the texture. She is beautiful and pliable. And it tastes simply incredible. If the cream seems too thick, add a tablespoon of cream, this will make it thinner. But mine is perfect now.

I give this option in the recipe because most people at home use measuring cups for powdered sugar, and they pack it down too much. So you'll want to thin the cream, if you know what I mean. Once everything is mixed, increase the speed to medium-low and beat for about a minute, until it becomes a little fluffier. Everything is mixed together and looks perfect. Time to assemble the cake. Grab your favorite plate that will fit a 9- inch cake. You will probably need a spoon with a mechanism. Maybe a pastry nozzle if you want to decorate something with a bag.

You will also need half a cup or 60 g of chopped toasted pecans. We will spread a glass of cream on the first cake. Be careful with portions, because if you take too much, you won't have enough in the end. Spread in an even thin layer. Place the next cake on top. One, two and three. Now we put the last cake and we can start covering the cake. I'll try to leave about 3/4 cup of the cream to do some decorating on top. Good. Now let's just transfer the rest of the cream to our cake. As I said, the cream cheese frosting is a bit soft. So I want to advise you to be more lenient with yourself. It doesn't have to look perfect.

The easiest way to finish the cake is to simply cover it with cream and make beautiful waves. It would be easy, wonderful, and beautiful. But today I want to work more with the pastry bag. So we'll see what comes of this. Work with the glaze. Actually, before you do this, place the cake exactly in the center so that it is tall and not skewed. Now spread the glaze on the sides so that the coating is even. Distribute it downwards. More coverage. Oh, I seem to do it so easily. Problems arise when the cake is not centered and the layers protrude from one side. Or when you try too hard and try to make everything too perfect. If you are afraid that

the cake will crumble, or if the cakes are too soft, you should first cover it with a thin layer of frosting. Take about two- thirds of a cup of frosting and apply a barely noticeable layer. Very thin. Place the cake in the refrigerator for 10-20 minutes. Take it out and continue decorating. This will secure all the crumbs, but that's not a problem right now. OK. So, I use an angled spatula to make sure the frosting goes on well and completely covers the cake. After that, a pastry scraper will help make perfectly smooth edges. For the top, use a spatula, scooping the frosting towards the center.

Clean the spatula between movements. You can simply run a spatula along the top, or if you want something more sophisticated, rotate the stand and slowly move the spatula toward the center. This will make a small curl. I quickly trim the edge. I have some icing left over, so why not decorate the top with it? I will make a wave. Don't get too close to the edge. So, take it outside. Go back up. Correct again and continue. It looks nice. Very old-fashioned, in a nice way. Here are my chopped toasted pecans. It's just a " skirt" at the bottom.

I love how sprinkles, chopped chocolate, or nuts look on the bottom of the cake. This gives it stability. And it also hints at what's inside. This makes you want to take a bite of it sooner. I'll clean up here later. I just press the nuts to the sides. I don't want a solid line, so I can stick it a little higher to create a slight gradient. It's not too noticeable, just a slight accent. A little bit of nuts. I think it looks very nice. Now we're going to put this in the fridge. It is very soft and fragile. Don't cut it yet. Your Creamy Pecan Cake should be refrigerated because of the cream cheese frosting.

It keeps for up to 5 days in the refrigerator or up to 3 months in the freezer. When the cake has cooled, cut off a slice and Cream cheese frosting with delicate vanilla sponge cake and crunchy pecans-it's just the perfect combination. I hope you will try making this wonderful recipe. And if you like my videos, hit the subscribe button and check out my cake playlist.