Butter Pecan Bourbon Cake with a Kentucky Bourbon Glaze

Butter Pecan Bourbon Cake uses a box cake, with a few improvements, and a little Kentucky bourbon. Top it with a bourbon glaze and it is the softest, moistest cake you will ever have.

Sometimes I just want cake, but I don’t feel like making cake. Which is essentially why box cakes exist, isn’t it?

A few days ago, I found myself wanting cake and bourbon. So I was at the store, checking out box mixes and thought, “What flavor would go well with bourbon?” Which immediately led to, “What if I put bourbon IN the cake!?”

Butter pecan was a pretty obvious choice. Though if I’d had some Pennington’s Strawberry Rye, I would have gone with a strawberry cake. (If anyone knows where I can get my hands on some Pennington’s, let me know!)

As for the frosting, I had some powdered sugar on hand and figured I could either dust that over the top (very pretty and perfect for lazy girls such as myself) or I could make my own frosting.

But then what if I put bourbon in the frosting, too!? The plan was to wait for the weekend to make this, but then when I made my decision on the frosting I was way too excited to wait.

So I got to spend my day getting drunk off frosting (because, you know, you gotta taste test).

I guess this is just my life now….

…Awesome.

(If you don’t want to put booze in your cake, try substituting it with cream soda!)

Butter Pecan Bourbon Cake

For the cake:

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup Kentucky bourbon
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil OR 1 cup butter
• 1 box of butter pecan cake mix

For the icing:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tsps Kentucky bourbon
• 8-10 tsps milk

Step 01: Preheat the oven to 350*F. Mix all the ingredients together except the bourbon. Make sure everything else is mixed properly and then add it (this is mainly to keep it from curdling the milk).

Step 02: Pour the batter into a greased pan. I used a bundt pan and baked my cake for 30 minutes. Adjust your baking time according to pan size.

Step 03: Remove from the oven and let it cool. 

Step 04: Once the cake is cool, remove it from the pan and mix the glaze ingredients together until smooth. Mix the liquids first and then slowly add the powdered sugar to it. Get all the clumps out and then let it sit for 10 minutes and thicken. Then slowly pour it over the cake.

Serve and enjoy!

Holy crap. I was 100% amazed with how this cake turned out. I figured one of two things would happen–either it wouldn’t bake correctly and it would turn out all dense and tiny (not likely, but still a fear I had) or it would bake fine, but it would be all dry.

No. You know all those sites that tell you how to turn a box cake into a bakery cake? (Quick refresher: add an extra 1-2 eggs, use milk instead of water, and use butter instead of oil and then double the amount. Easy.) They had it a tad wrong.

What you should actually be doing is adding bourbon. You’re welcome.

Seriously, though, it was SO soft and SO moist, I can’t even believe it. I have never seen a cake this soft before, I swear.

One day, I’m going to stop being so lazy and actually make this cake from scratch. Then I’ll be unstoppable.

What kind of cake would you add bourbon to? Or would you choose a different kind of liquor? I am all about this now, send me your suggestions! Maybe I’ll even make a few of them happen. 😉

Butter Pecan Bourbon Cake with Kentucky Bourbon Glaze

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Serves: 10 Prep Time: 10m Cooking Time: 30m

Ingredients

• For the cake:

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup Kentucky bourbon
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil OR 1 cup butter
• 1 box of butter pecan cake mix

• For the icing:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tsps Kentucky bourbon
• 8-10 tsps milk

Instructions

Step 01: Preheat the oven to 350*F. Mix all the ingredients together except the bourbon. Make sure everything else is mixed properly and then add it (this is mainly to keep it from curdling the milk).

Step 02: Pour the batter into a greased pan. I used a bundt pan and baked my cake for 30 minutes. Adjust your baking time according to pan size.

Step 03: Remove from the oven and let it cool.

Step 04: Once the cake is cool, remove it from the pan and mix the glaze ingredients together until smooth. Mix the liquids first and then slowly add the powdered sugar to it. Get all the clumps out and then let it sit for 10 minutes and thicken. Then slowly pour it over the cake.

Butter Pecan Bourbon Cake with a Kentucky Bourbon Glaze was last modified: April 17th, 2017 by Chelsey