Churro Cake – Cinnamon sugar swirled cake layers with cinnamon sugar buttercream and cinnamon chip ganache.
Bachelorette Weekend
A few years ago I spent the weekend in Santa Ynez, California to celebrate my best friend of almost 20 years.
As part of an incredible bachelorette weekend (one that included a gorgeous rental property, a private chef for a night, wine tasting, and lot of laughter and lasting memories), I created a couple of new cakes, including this Churro Cake.
Picking the Perfect Cake for a Fiesta
Knowing the chef would be cooking Mexican food for our first night, it seemed like the obvious choice to create Mexican-inspired cakes for dessert. Mandy isn’t the chocolate lover I am (I’m not even sure how we became best friends 😉), so I decided on a churro-inspired cake for the bride-to-be and a Mexican hot chocolate cake – because there should always be a chocolate cake around.
After doing some research, I landed on French Toast Cake from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen as a starting point to my recipe. I loved the idea of the cinnamon sugar swirling throughout the cake, but made some changes to the rest of the cake to take out the maple flavoring and create a slightly different texture.
The Most Delicious Churro Cake Recipe
I loved the flavor and texture of this cake. It’s similar to a pound cake with a dense but moist texture. I also love the cinnamon sugar swirls baked throughout the cake and the cinnamon chip ganache – both of which take this cake to the next level.
If you can’t find cinnamon chips (because in most areas they’re seasonal), you can also use caramel baking chips.
This cake was the hit of our girls’ weekend. I have no doubt you’ll love it as much as we did!
Enjoy!
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Churro Cake
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 3/4 cup (165 g) packed brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons (5.2 g) ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups (339 g) unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups (500 g) granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs room temperature
- 2 teaspoons (8.2 g) pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 g) salt
- 3 3/4 cups (450 g) all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons (12 g) baking powder
- 2 teaspoon (5.2 g) ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups (360 g) buttermilk room temperature
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- 2 cups (452 g) unsalted butter slightly cold
- 6 cups (750 g) powdered sugar measured and then sifted
- 1 1/2 teaspoon (6.3 g) vanilla
- 2 teaspoon (5.3 g) ground cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons (45 g) heavy cream
- *This buttercream recipe makes enough to fill and cover your cake. If you want to add additional piping you’ll want to make an extra 1/2 batch.
FOR THE GANACHE
- 1 cup (150 g) cinnamon chips
- 1/4 cup (30 g) heavy cream
Instructions
FOR THE CAKE
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spray three 8 inch or four 6 inch round cake pans with non-stick spray, place parchment rounds in each pan and spray again. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, stir together 3/4 cup brown sugar and 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and additional cinnamon. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Add vanilla.
- With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the flour and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with the flour mixture and scraping the bowl as needed. Pour about 10 oz. of the batter in each 8-inch pan or 8 ounces in each 6-inch pans. Divide the cinnamon and brown sugar mixture between the cakes (about 2 to 3 oz.), sprinkling evenly over the batter, then top with the remaining batter (about 10 oz. more per 8-inch pan or 8 oz in each 6-inch pan).
- Bake for 28 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Remember, not all ovens are the same, so check your cakes around 25 minutes and keep an eye on them.
- Remove cakes from the oven and let cool in pans for about 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled completely, wrap each cake layer with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes. Can be made ahead of time and frozen for up to two weeks. Let thaw for an hour before stacking and decorating.
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the powdered sugar. When it’s all combined, add the heavy, cinnamon and vanilla. Turn the mixer to medium-high speed and beat for about 5 minutes.
- Using a wooden spoon, beat frosting to get air bubbles out.
FOR THE GANACHE
- Place the cinnamon chips and cream in a microwave safe bowl. Heat in the microwave in 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until the mixture is smooth. Let cool to room temperature using on the cake.
ASSEMBLY
- After leveling the cake layers (if needed), place one cake layer, top-side up on a cake board or cake plate.
- Evenly spread about 1/2 to 2/3 cup frosting over the cake layer.
- Pipe a rim of frosting around the edge of the cake layer. Spread about 1/3 cup of the cinnamon chip ganache on the frosting before placing another cake layer on top.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3.
- Apply a thin coat of frosting around the entire cake to create a crumb coat. Chill the crumb coat in the freezer for 10 minutes to lock in crumbs.
- After the crumb coat is chilled, continue frosting the cake and use the remaining cinnamon chip ganache for a drip.
What did you use on top of the ganache? Are those little churro bites?
They are churro marshmallows.
Can I put more than 20oz of batter in an 8” pan?? I usually make my layers thicker and this just doesn’t seem like enough. I also have the really tall pans though so maybe it’s that?
You can.
I’m trying to find the churro cake that is made with dulce de leche; is there a direct link?
That one is just in my book.
Getting ready to bake this, light or dark brown sugar?
Sorry I’m late to this. Light but if you used dark, that’s ok too.
Made the churr cake for my boy’s birthday. Used cinnamon cream cheese frosting instead of the butter cream frosting and Carmel gouache. It came out amazing.
Yay!!
How many cups of batter is in this recipe?
This cake was delicious – multiple people at the party told me it was the best cake they had ever eaten! I will say that my cake was very dense – it was also very moist so it was not unpleasant at all, but just made for an extremely rich texture. Great cake!
Yes this one is a dense cake for sure. So glad you liked it!
Absolutely divine! I served this at my Christmas tamale party last night and it was a huge hit. I baked the three layer 8 inch version but my guests thought it was a 6-layer cake since by some stroke of luck the cinnamon/brown sugar layers came out so evenly. This will become a classic in my repertoire. Thank you, Courtney!
Where can I find the actual recipe, this is just the story?
It’s up! Might have just been a glitch 🙂
I am making this right now, I had to use vegetable oil instead of butter as I didn’t realize I don’t have enough butter for both frosting and cake batter (oops haha). The batter is quite runny? Is that normal? I think I may use less buttermilk than it calls for due to the runny nature?
Oil will change the texture if it calls for butter!
Wow, this is an amazing cake!! Everyone loved it at our birthday celebration.
Could I make it as a large sheet pan cake? Making it for a large crowd so was wondering if I could do two large layers
Yeah you definitely can.
How much cinnamon chips did you add to your batter on Instagram?
About a half cup.