Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This vintage recipe is moist and packed with fall spices!

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you'll love it
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥫 Storage
• 📖 Variations
• 💭 Things to know
• 🥣 How to Make a Homemade Spice Cake Mix
• 👩‍🍳 FAQs
• 📚 Related recipes
• 🍽️ Serve with...
• 🥄 Equipment
• 📞 The last word
• Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
• 💬 Comments

❤️ Why you'll love it

• Simple cream cheese frosting that's always rich and creamy.
• SO much better than a box mix.
• Two layers of decadent spicy fall flavor.

Old-fashioned spice cake has a decadent cream cheese frosting that is full of warm fall flavors like cinnamon and cloves.

🧾 Ingredients

Next time try this easy 3 ingredient pumpkin spice cake!

🔪 Instructions

Note: This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the green recipe card below.

Spice Cake

1. Mix your dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Cream the butter and sugars then at the eggs and vanilla extract.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
4. Pour batter in 2 pans and bake as directed in the recipe card below.

Best Cream Cheese Frosting

What's the best frosting for spice cake? Tangy cream cheese frosting of course!!!

1. Cream the room temperature butter and sugar together.
2. Add the vanilla extract and whip until fluffy.
3. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time.
4. Use to fill and frost the cooled cake.

Smoked Pecans (Optional)

1. Heat the bacon grease and sesame oil in a heavy skillet until very hot.
2. Add the chopped pecans and saute for a minute or two, watching carefully. Keep them moving around with your spatula!
3. Add the salt and toast for another minute stirring constantly.
4. Remove from pan. Drain on paper towels and cool completely before adding to cake.

🥫 Storage

Store unfrosted cake layers wrapped tightly in plastic wrap at room temperature for a day or two - or freeze for up to three months.

Once frosted you can store the cake in a cake dome or in an airtight container for up to three days at room temperature.

You can also freeze the finished cake in an airtight container for up to three months. I like to slices it and put parchment paper between slices so I can easily remove exactly what I need.

I don't recommend refrigerating the cake - it tends to dry it out.

📖 Variations

• Double up on the spices for more flavor.
• Mix the chopped pecans into the batter rather than using them to garnish the cake.
• Stir in a cup of grated zucchini, apple, or carrots.
• Try it with the lemon frosting found here.

💭 Things to know

Expert Tip: Spice cakes tend to be better on the second day. Standing overnight gives the spices a chance to really come to life and blend so if you can make this cake a day ahead of time please do!

• Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature
• This cake will likely have a rounded top - especially if you don't use the cake strips. Just carefully slice off the top to make it even.
• Don't over mix or the cake will be tough.
• This cake freezes well frosted or unfrosted.
• I baked these in 8-inch cake pans with 3 inch sides. You may need to use 9-inch cake pans if you have shorter sides.
• You can make one layer by using a 13x9-inch pan. Fill it ¾ of the way up and if there is leftover batter use it for cupcakes.

🥣 How to Make a Homemade Spice Cake Mix

Here's another thing.

You DO know that you can create your own cake mixes right?

I mean if you need that time saving factor (raises hand...) you can mix the dry ingredients for this cake and keep them in a tightly covered mason jar in your pantry for a couple of months.

Be sure to use cake flour and not all-purpose flour.

Some rainy weekend afternoon just call the kids in and make a bunch of cake mixes!

You can use dry milk if you like to make it where you only need to add water but I prefer just to leave the dry milk out and use real milk.

When you are ready to bake just cream the butter and eggs, add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk and vanilla (or other flavoring) and ...Voila!

👩‍🍳 FAQs

📚 Related recipes

Apparently my relatives liked cake because besides Grandma's spice cake recipe I have more than enough others to make a different cake every day of the year for a very long time.

• Banana Cake with Gooey Walnut Filling is pure comfort food, straight from grandma’s kitchen — that is if you had a grandma that baked. Tender layers of banana cake are filled with a walnut filling (similar to pecan pie), and frosting with a tangy-sweet whipped cream cheese frosting that’s so light it’s like biting into a cloud.
• Whisky Spice Apple Bundt Cake is moist and delicious with chunks of tart apple and just enough cinnamon and warms spices. Once baked you’ll turn this apple filled bundt cake out of the pan, brush with a whiskey syrup, and add a drizzle of whiskey caramel sauce. 
• Orange Layer Cake is made from scratch. Moist, rich butter cake layers are separated by whipped orange buttercream. This old-fashioned cake recipe is just right for any occasion from birthdays to boring days!
• Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake recipe has a luscious mocha buttercream frosting and is 3 layers of moist, fudgy decadence. 
• Classic Yellow Layer Cake is moist and buttery with a thick bittersweet chocolate frosting – just like that droolworthy layer cake you remember. I’ve included tips and tricks to make sure that your homemade cake comes out perfectly every single time. 
• Try this Chocolate Spice Cake for a delicious combination of my two favorite kinds of cake!

🍽️ Serve with...

• Cinnamon gelato
• Salted caramel latte

Cozy sweaters and Hallmark movies!

🥄 Equipment

The following are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

You'll need the following items to make this recipe successfully.

• electric mixer with a paddle attachment
• heavy skillet
• rubber spatula
• large mixing bowl
• medium bowl
• 8-inch round cake pans with high sides (3-inch)
• cake strips will help keep your cakes from doming up in the middle.
• wire rack

📞 The last word

Spice cake with cream cheese frosting.

Each bite melts in your mouth - it's so moist and delicious that no one can resist it!

This is one of my favorite cakes to pop into the oven when those first cool fall breezes hit - it's the perfect cake to welcome fall.

Of course in Texas THAT can be sometime in November so I have to fudge a little and use the cool breezes flowing from the air conditioning system for inspiration.

This old fashioned spice cake recipe is a sweet, tender cake packed with warm fall flavors like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves then swathed in a whip of homemade cream cheese frosting that's tangy, rich, and sensuously creamy.

Sumptuous, smoky pecans add a salty contrast and crunch.

One bite and you'll know why this classic spice cake recipe is a favorite - it's simply the best.

You might also like this creamy pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust or old fashioned gingerbread.

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!

If you love this recipe please give it 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

First published December 21, 2010. Last updated September 4, 2022 for readability.