Kentucky Butter Cake

Ms. Laskey: Mrs. Lewis's husband, Dr. Albert G. Lewis, practiced medicine with my father, Dr. H. Graham Parker, in Platte City, Missouri, in the 1960's. Our mother was thrilled when Nell Lewis took her cake to the Bake-Off. Sadly, the Pillsbury rules precluded the use of alcohol, so Nell had to use rum flavoring for rum at the Bake-Off. The original, much better, recipe called for adding 1/2 cup light rum after taking the sauce off the heat. It's fabulous; I make it for every New Year's Day.

Re: the tip about buttermilk...why not measure a tablespoon of white vinegar into the 1 cup measure and then fill up to the one cup measure with milk?

Here are the directions for the sauce from my mother's copy of her friend Nell Lewis's recipe: As soon as the cake comes from the oven pour over it the following sauce: 1 c. sugar, 1/4 c. water, 1 stick butter. Bring almost to a boil, remove from heat and add 1/2 c. (or more) light rum.

That is correct! That's the way Nell did it. ( : You certainly can cream the butter and sugar first, etc, and it won't negatively affect the recipe, but it's really not necessary. I didn't have a lumpy batter after a good 3 minutes of beating.

I have been making this regularly since the mid 1970s. Anyone who ever tastes it wants the revipe. If your butter is nice and soft you ccan simply dump all ingredients into the mixmaster bowl and let'er rip for three minutes. Have also substituted margarine in the cake without adverse effects. The sauce, however, needs the butter. The anniversary bundt pan from Nordic helps withclean removal of the cake, by the way.

For a non-baker, this made me look like a rock star! I changed up the warm butter sauce to a lemon butter sauce, with 3 tbsps of Lemon juice and the zest from one lemon. We were fighting over the last piece of this!

Made this yesterday. Absolutely delicious! My only change was cutting the sugar in half in the batter and in the sauce. Perfect tenderness and plenty sweet all by itself, and served with berries, let the flavors shine through. A big hit.

Note to Astrid Spencer and others: the swirly pan is the Heritage Bundt pan from NordicWare. I bought a 6-cup version at Williams-Sonoma. Butter the pan generously, chill it, then butter it again before flouring it; there's less chance the cake will stick.

Wonder what’d happen if Bourbon was swapped in for the water in the glaze/frosting...has to be tried

Halved the recipe and baked it in a pretty 6-cup bundt pan for about 55 minutes. Gorgeous and delicious!

2 and 3/4 cups of sugar is not "almost 4 cups of sugar".

A New Canaan, CT, staple in the 1960s-1970s, still holds its own as one of the top cakes ever. Breakfast, lunch, snack, teatime, dinner dessert --- Absolutely a favorite. I emailed my two 50-something kids; its re-emergence in this amazing column gave us the warm and cozies...For those who haven't made it, do yourselves and your loved ones a huge favor. I salute an old friend, Martha Hutter, who introduced me to it.

Hi All! We had a technical issue on the back end that prevented the butter sauce ingredients from showing up. They're there now!

This cake was delicious. Very light and moist. It was very easy to put together too. No need to cream the butter and sugar first. Upon tasting the batter I thought it would be a little “one note” to use granulated sugar in the glaze so I subbed in light brown sugar. If I hadn’t been cooking for a child and a pregnant woman I would have used bourbon in place of the water in the glaze. Yes I know that if all the alcohol had not burned off the final residue of bourbon would be minuscule.

Hey, Justine. I've made this cake several times. You could probably just dump it all together ("dump cakes" are a thing), but I prefer to cream the butter and sugar in the mixer, then add the other wet ingredients to make sure they're well-combined. Then I whisk the dry ingredients together before adding them to the wet mixture. Also, if you're using a cooking spray it should be done just before adding the batter, lest it pool on the bottom. You're going to love this cake.