High Altitude Snickerdoodle Cake
A rich, moist and dense buttermilk cake that tastes just like a snickerdoodle! Frosted with cinnamon vanilla bean buttercream and sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar, this cake is to die for.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
Ingredients
Cake
- ¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 3 oz (85g) cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (216g) granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup (106g) light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 3 (165g) large eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups (270g) cake flour (or all-purpose flour), spooned and leveled
- ¾ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 cup (269g) whole buttermilk
Buttercream
- 2 cups (452g) unsalted butter (1 lb), softened to room temperature
- 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped (or 2 tsp vanilla bean paste, or 1 tbsp vanilla extract)
- 4 cups (560g) powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp (9g) meringue powder (optional)
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2-4 tbsp (33-66ml) milk or cream, if needed for desired consistency
- cinnamon & sugar, for sprinkling on top (1 tbsp granulated sugar + 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon)
- 1-2 cans Pirouettes cookies (see note)
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare three 8-inch round pans by spraying the bottoms only with non-stick spray. (Note that for a taller cake, bake the batter in four 6-inch pans.)
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, cream cheese and sugars for 5-7 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Scrape the bowl down and beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating for a full minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour; mix just until combined.
- Divide the batter between the pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick in the center comes out with moist crumbs but not batter. Set the pans on wire racks, cover loosely with clean kitchen towels, and cool completely before frosting.(The cake can also be made one day ahead of time; keep fresh and moist by cooling in the pans for one hour, then turning out the warm cakes onto pieces of plastic wrap. Wrap each cake individually in plastic wrap and assemble/frost/decorate the following day, or freeze for several months.)
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter and vanilla bean seeds/paste for one minute.
- In a separate bowl, combine the powdered sugar, meringue powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, then with the mixer on low, add by spoonfuls to the butter until mostly combined.
- Add the milk or cream and whip on medium high, scraping the bowl down occasionally, for 4-5 minutes until very light and fluffy.
- Stack the cakes, filling them with a ¼ inch thick layer of buttercream between each. Frost all over with a thin crumb coat of buttercream, then chill for 15 minutes before frosting all over with a final layer of buttercream.
- Arrange the Pirouettes around the sides of the cake. For a shorter 8-inch cakes, you can cut the Pirouettes in half. For a taller 6-inch cake, keep the Pirouettes whole.
- If desired, fit a piping bag with tip 1M to pipe a rosette on top of the cake, then sprinkle with the cinnamon/sugar mixture.
Notes
- For best results, read all the instructions and ingredients lists before getting started. This cake is moist, dense and rich, since it's intended to be like a snickerdoodle cookie but in cake form.
- In addition to letting your butter and cream cheese soften to room temperature so that you can easily cream them with the sugar, you should let all your dairy ingredients (including eggs and buttermilk) warm up to room temperature, which makes for a better cake batter.
- You can (and I have) make this cake using all-purpose flour instead of cake flour, however, the cake flour makes a much lighter and more tender cake that is just heavenly.
- If you don’t have buttermilk, pour 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar into a liquid measuring cup, then add whole milk up to the 1 cup line. Warm in the microwave on high for one minute to curdle the milk. You don’t need to let it cool, and can add it to your batter while it’s warm.
- For the Pirouettes, you'll need 2 cans of cookies for a tall 6-inch cake. For a shorter 8-inch cake, you can cut the Pirouettes in half and just use 1 can.
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