Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cake – Chocolate chip cake layers with butterscotch frosting, chocolate cookie crumbs and butterscotch ganache.
Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cake
One more cake for you to round out the week. This Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cake is made with my light and fluffy white cake layers from my Classic White Cake, a new butterscotch frosting, Milk Bar chocolate cookie crumbs and butterscotch ganache.
I originally made this cake Milk Bar style, with a butterscotch pudding filling. While I loved the flavors, I always felt like it could be improved. It also never really set well like a Milk Bar style cake should.
Changes
As I thought about remaking this cake, I knew I wanted to switch up the butterscotch pudding. It was always the element of the cake that just didn’t feel right to me. The flavor was great, but it just wasn’t a filling meant for a cake.
I decided to completely get rid of the pudding element, and instead, add more butterscotch punch with a butterscotch ganache. You’ll use the ganache in between each layer, as well as on top of the cake as a drip.
I also changed my frosting from the original recipe. The original recipe had dulce de leche in the frosting and felt more like caramel frosting than butterscotch. My new frosting has melted butterscotch chips in it like my chocolate frosting.
I’m so happy with how this revision turned out. The flavors and textures are exactly what I was looking for.
I hope you like it too!

Help! I’ve made this white cake recipe a few times, and every time it’s ended up being dry. I’m not over baking because there’s still moist crumbs when I do the toothpick test. I also found that adding the butter the way you described to do, didn’t incorporate well with the dry ingredients, so I would always end up using a pastry cutter. Any help you can offer would be great! Thanks
For the cake, try taking out some of the flour – maybe a few tablespoons. I’d also add an extra egg or a 1/4 cup oil. For the butter, just soften it more so it blends better. For the chocolate chips, coat them in a little flour before you fold them in.
…One more question! How do you keep the mini chocolate chips from not sinking to the bottom of the cake while it bakes?
I’m butterscotch obsessed, so I am excited to try this cake out! Thanks Courtney!
Hey! I notice that in the butterscotch frosting recipe you include adding heavy cream in the directions, but not in the ingredients list… And alternately include salt on the ingredients but not in the directions… Just thought you might want to take a peek at that in case it confused someone! 😘
Thank you!
HI COURTNEY, LOVE YOUR BLOG, JUST A QUESTION CAN YOU SHARE WITH ME THE ORIGINAL RECIPE WITH DULCE DE LECHE.. I’M FROM LIMA PERU AND HERE I CANT GET BUTTERSCOTCH CHIPS…. THANK YOU
Hello. Thank you for ur wonderful website. I’m a new baker and have been practicing with some of ur recipes. Ive been making a lot of mistakes but that’s ok because that’s part of the learning process. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong with the buttercream. It’s just enough to cover and frost a layer. I don’t have enough to decorate. Do I have to make more frosting or am I putting too much? I am baking a two layer cake using 9” pan. Thanks again.
Hmmm, my recipes are enough to fill and frost an entire cake. I wonder if you’re using too much in the center between the layers and too much for your crumb coat. It should yield about 6 cups of frosting.
You didn’t give directions for the ganache drip (pictured on outside of cake). Will the recipe for the drip be enough to drizzle on the layers and complete the drip as pictured? Shouldn’t I wait until ready to assemble to make the drip? I find chocolate drip gets hard too fast if I make it before crumb coating and chilling the cake.
It’s the same ganache. I just reheat mine to thin it out after it sets for a bit.
Made this cake for my father-in-law birthday. It was a huge hit! I love the butterscotch buttercream! The cake was good flavor… but again the buttercream was out of this world. If you like butterscotch this is a must try!!
Cake was out of this world and the saltiness of the crumble was a great contrast to the sweetness of the frosting. Because we used such high-fat butter (kerrygold), we had to frost with the buttercream slightly warmer than room temperature. Thanks for putting this recipe out there for all to use.
Sounds delicious!