High Altitude Oatmeal Cream Pie Cake
Two layers of soft oatmeal cake spiced with cinnamon, sandwiched together with fluffy vanilla buttercream. Each bite tastes like an oatmeal creme pie but in a slice of cake.
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
- 9 Inch Round Cake Pans (x2)
- Food Processor or Ninja
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, finely ground
- 2 ¾ cups cake flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- ½ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- 2 tsp original (not blackstrap) molasses
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 ¾ cups whole milk
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ½ cup vegetable shortening (or you can replace with softened butter, but the shortening will make a whiter frosting)
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp meringue powder, optional
- ⅛ tsp coarse Kosher salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line the bottoms of two 9-inch round cake pans with circles of parchment paper. Lightly spray the paper with non-stick baking spray.
- Using a small food processor or ninja, grind the oats into fine crumbs resembling oat flour. In a large bowl, whisk together the ground oats with the cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Set aside.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan occasionally, until nutty brown solids form at the bottom of the pan. This will happen right about the same time that the butter stops hissing and a layer of foam forms on top. Set the butter aside to cool for 10 minutes.
- In a bowl, whisk together the browned butter with the brown sugar, oil and molasses, until well combined. Whisk in the eggs, milk and vanilla.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and whisk just until combined.
- Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake the cakes for about 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, or with moist crumbs clinging to it. Do not over-bake these cakes, or they'll end up dry and crumbly due to the addition of the oats.
- Set the pans on a cooling rack, cover them loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter with the shortening for one minute, until smooth.
- With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the meringue powder and salt, mixing until combined. Add the vanilla.
- Beat the buttercream on medium speed for 4-5 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl several times, until very light and fluffy. Turn the speed down to "stir" and mix for one more minute.
- Place one of the cooled cakes on a cake pedestal or serving plate. Using an icing spatula, frost the cake all over with a very thin "crumb coat", scraping off any excess buttercream so that the cake shows through the frosting. Set aside the same amount of buttercream to use later for the top layer of cake.
- Fit a 16-inch disposable piping bag with tip 1M, and fill halfway full with buttercream. Starting at the outer edge, pipe the buttercream onto the first layer of cake, working your way towards the middle. Refill the piping bag as needed, and then, if you have enough, pipe another layer of buttercream on top of the first to make a thick layer of filling.
- Carefully place the second layer of cake on top, then use the reserved buttercream to frost the top layer of cake with a thin crumb coat. If you choose, you can also leave the cakes completely naked, and skip the crumb coat altogether. A naked cake will look more like a giant oatmeal creme pie sandwich cookie.
Notes
Instead of two 9-inch pans, you can also use two 8-inch pans, as long as they have a 3-inch depth. Your cake layers will be a little thicker, and will need a few minutes longer to bake.
For a three layer cake that's frosted all over with buttercream, bake the cake in three 8-inch pans. Increase the buttercream recipe by 1 1/2 - 2 x, so you'll have enough to fill and frost the cake. See this post for tips on stacking and frosting layer cakes.
For a smaller cake, cut the recipe in half and bake the cake in two 6-inch cake pans.
Store the leftover cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
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