Bourbon Cake Recipe: Authentic Southern Style

First published November 2016. Last updated April 15, 2025 for editorial improvements.

This rich, buttery cake came straight from the pages of one of my early 1900s cookbooks—complete with a faded ink star scribbled by some long-ago Southern baker who clearly knew a good thing when she tasted it. Packed with warm pecans and bold bourbon flavor, this one’s strictly adults-only and definitely not shy. It's dense, moist, and unapologetically boozy—in the best way possible. Perfect for holidays, porch swings, or any occasion that calls for a little extra Southern drawl. Just promise me you’ll make it a day ahead so the flavors can settle in and get to know each other a little better.

🧾 Ingredients

🔪 Instructions

1. Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs, then add bourbon.
2. Blend dry ingredients together and add in.
3. Fold in the pecans, spoon into the bundt pan and bake.
4. Pour bourbon around edge of baked cake while it is still hot.

📖 Recipe

Bourbon Cake Recipe

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This vintage-inspired homemade bourbon cake recipe bakes up moist, buttery, and loaded with pecans—then gets soaked in more bourbon and topped with a rich glaze that’s got a kick all its own. It’s easy, indulgent, and just the kind of dessert your grandma made when the preacher wasn’t lookin’.

Course Dessert - Cake

Cuisine American - Southern

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour hour 40 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 55 minutes minutes

Servings:16

Calories:566

Author:Marye Audet-White

Ingredients

• ▢ Butter for greasing pan
• ▢ Sugar for pan
• ▢ 2 cups butter
• ▢ 2 cups sugar
• ▢ 6 eggs
• ▢ 3 cups flour
• ▢ 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• ▢ 2 cups chopped pecans
• ▢ ¾ cup bourbon
• ▢ 3 tablespoons of bourbon for pouring

Glaze

• ▢ 1-½ cups Confectioner's sugar
• ▢ 3 tablespoons melted butter
• ▢ 1 tablespoon bourbon
• ▢ ¼ cup chopped pecans

Instructions

• Have all ingredients at room temperature before beginning.
• Grease a bundt pan and add about ¼ cup sugar.
• Move the bundt pan around and gently shake until the sugar coats the pan.
• Pour out any excess sugar.
• Preheat the oven to 325F.
• Cream the butter and 2 cups of sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
• Beat in ½ cup of the bourbon.
• Blend the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together.
• Add to the creamed mixture a little at a time.
• Stir in the remaining ¼ cup  bourbon and pecans.
• Spoon into the prepared bundt pan.
• Bake at 325F for 1 hour 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted halfway between the side and the center has just one or two crumbs attached to it.
• Remove cake from oven.
• While still hot pour the 3 tablespoons of bourbon over the cake along the outside edge.
• Let cool in the pan.

Glaze

• Add the Confectioner's sugar to a bowl.
• Stir in the melted butter until well blended.
• Add enough bourbon to make a thick glaze.
• Spoon the glaze over the cooled cake and sprinkle with more chopped pecans.

Notes

Storage:

This bourbon cake is best if you make it a day or so ahead of time. Leftovers can be stored at room temperature for about 4 days. Cover with plastic wrap or place in a cake carrier to keep it fresh.

This cake freezes very well for up to 3 months.

Tips:

• It's good without the bourbon, if you don't drink. Just substitute a good, spicy ginger beer or ginger ale for the bourbon if you don't imbibe. Apple cider will work, too.

You'll find more helpful tips and variations in the body of the post.

Nutrition Facts

Calories: 566kcal | Carbohydrates: 49g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 36g | Saturated Fat: 16g | Cholesterol: 66mg | Sodium: 313mg | Potassium: 138mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 29g | Vitamin A: 780IU | Vitamin C: 0.2mg | Calcium: 36mg | Iron: 1.5mg

Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.

Notes

Most of the alcohol in the actual cake bakes out but it's soaked in bourbon after it comes out of the oven. Then an uncooked bourbon glaze goes over the top. In other words, I would have something "kid friendly" like this old fashioned buttermilk pound cake on the menu as well.

Few holidays in Texas aren't celebrated with copious amounts of alcohol. This Southern bourbon cake certainly has that. It's a dense cake that has a strong bourbon flavor mellowed with the addition of buttery chopped pecans. Then more bourbon is poured over the warm cake, and finally a bourbon butter glaze is drizzled over the top.

Be sure to get a good bourbon because that's where all the flavor is going to come from. I use one or another that's distilled in Texas like Garrison Brothers or Firestone & Robertson. Use something you like.

My very first experience with bourbon cake was when I was about 17 and working in the Junior Department of Joske's Department Store. It was just before Christmas and I was invited to a Christmas party at the home of one of my co-workers. That table was laden down with all kinds of appetizers, cookies, desserts... you name it. It looked like something out of a Dicken's novel. Right smack in the center of the table was a crystal cake dish with a bundt cake on it. It all looked scrumptious.

Now, most everyone there was an adult. I started working at 14 by lying about my age. I worked from 3:30 to 11 pm after school and worked a 40-hour week. By the time I was 16 I was working full time and making a bit more than minimum wage (which was 2.25 an hour, by the way). I looked older and I think people forgot that I was so young. Anyway, back to the cake.

I took the slice I was offered and sat on the fireplace, carefully balancing punch and cake on my knee. Trying very hard to look sophisticated I took a took a bite of the cake. Right then and there my sinuses cleared up, my head blew off, and my eyes probably bugged out.

So much for sophistication.

By the time the party was over I had sampled the cake as well as numerous rum balls and bourbon balls. You've just gotta love Southern hospitality. Being rather mature I decided to call my dad to pick me up rather than try to drive home myself.

I decided this after I tripped off the edge of the dining area into the sunken living room and landed on my face.

Honestly, I am not excessively graceful so that could have happened without the rum balls, bourbon balls, and bourbon cake but I wasn't taking any chances.

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