This Baileys Irish cream cake is made completely from scratch and can be made with all-purpose flour or with 100% whole grain flour. Perfect for St. Patrick’s Day!
I bought a bottle of Irish cream on Saturday night and it’s almost gone. I think most of it went into this Irish cream cake! It’s pretty boozy. I took this totally from scratch rum cake and halved it, which involved some funky calculations, and exchanged the rum for Irish cream.
I used Carolans Irish cream here, which is smoother than Baileys. That means it’s great for drinking, at least in my opinion, but when you bake with it, the alcohol isn’t that apparent. And when I bake with booze, I want my goodies to actually taste boozy. So use Baileys!
I wanted my Irish cream cake to be drenched in syrup so only make half of the syrup if you just want a little. Mr. Texanerin actually complained that, “It’s dripping!” when he picked it up. But then he took a bite and stopped complaining. :D
It’s kind of hard to make a Baileys cake healthy but I did what I could. No cake mix, no pudding mix, and it’s 100% whole wheat. I used white whole wheat and you absolutely can’t taste it! But it’s important to use white whole wheat here and not regular whole wheat. If you use regular whole wheat, you will be able to tell it’s been made healthier. You could also do a mix of all-purpose and regular whole wheat if you don’t have access to white whole wheat. I’ve also made this with all-purpose and it tastes exactly the same.
And this Irish cream cake is SO moist. I tried it before I drowned it in syrup (see here on my method :D) and it was fluffy, light and not very boozy (hence the syrup!)
I used a 6-cup bundt pan here but you could bake these in cupcake form (I’m just guessing that it’d yield 8-12 cupcakes) or if you want a full-sized bundt cake, go check out my rum cake and use Baileys instead of rum. Easy!
So there. A St. Patrick’s Day dessert recipe without food coloring! And I have at least one more dye-free St. Patrick’s Day recipe coming up. But for next time – something with chocolate and peanut butter for my grain-free friends. :)
Totally From Scratch Irish Cream Cake
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 8 pieces
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (114 grams) white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup (25 grams) non-fat or whole-milk dry milk powder
- 3 tablespoons (26 grams ) cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 stick (1/4 cup or 56 grams) butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cup (168 grams) granulated or unrefined sugar
- 1/3 cup (78ml) canola oil
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (90ml) milk
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (90ml) Irish cream
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 stick (1/4 cup or 56 grams) butter
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (75 grams) granulated or unrefined sugar
- 1/4 cup (60ml) water
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup (60ml) Irish cream
For the cake:
For the syrup:
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 325°F (162°C). Spray a 6 cup bundt pan very well and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, dry milk powder, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Set this aside.
- In a large bowl with a stand mixer or electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes.
- Add the dry flour mix to this. It will resemble fine crumbs at this point.
- In the bowl that just had the flour mix, whisk together the oil, milk, eggs, Irish cream, and vanilla extract. Add this to the crumb mixture and beat until well combined. The batter will be very thin.
- Pour the batter into the greased bundt pan and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- When there are about 15 minutes remaining on the timer, start the syrup. In a medium saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, water and salt over medium heat. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish cream.
- Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then invert onto a wire rack. Wash and thoroughly dry the bundt pan and place the cake back into the pan. Poke holes into the cake (I used a meat thermometer) and pour the syrup slowly over the cake. Let it sit in the pan for one hour to properly absorb the liquid. It might seem soggy at first (there's a lot of syrup!) but will eventually be absorbed by the cake.
- Serve immediately or cover the cake and refrigerate for up to 5 days.
Adapted from Totally from Scratch Rum Cake, which was adapted from Rum Cake from Scratch From Always Order Dessert
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47 comments on “Totally From Scratch Irish Cream Cake (whole grain option)” — Add one!
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Would like to try this out. Any substitute for the corn starch and butter?
You could use 7.5 tbsp of refined coconut oil in the cake, but the problem is the syrup. I think butter is really needed for the flavor. Instead of cornstarch, you can use arrowroot or tapioca starch. Sorry for my slow reply! I’m on vacation.
Thank you. I actually tried it with plain Greek yoghurt in place of the butter since there’s already oil in the recipe, I didn’t want to use coconut oil. Enjoyed the cake and trying it again today with less sugar (too sweet for me lol) and “light” butter.
This looks so good, and would probably be great for gifting! All of the ingredients are common in my kitchen except dry milk, and it’s not a common ingredient where I live. Is there a way to make it with regular milk? I’d love to try making this!
Hi! I’m so sorry for just now seeing your question. I unfortunately haven’t found a good sub for dry milk powder in this recipe. There’s this page that tells you how to sub it using water or regular milk, but there’s not enough milk in this recipe to omit to make up for the added liquid. That probably doesn’t make sense but it will if you read the link. Sorry again!
Hi again! I just tried it with some modifications, so I’ll share in case anyone else is having similar thoughts.
I mixed regular flour and ww pastry flour, mixed cornstarch and arrowroot powder (because i was low on cornstarch), and mixed beet sugar and coconut sugar (for the syrup i only used beet sugar). I also used butter flavoured coconut oil instead of butter, powdered coconut milk instead of regular dry milk, and used 1/3 c applesauce in place of the canola oil. I bet pumpkin puree or mashed banana might work as well. I wanted rum cake, so I subbed rum for the Irish cream like you said. I didn’t even have a bundt pan, so i just baked it in a regular round pan. It needed about five minutes longer than the listed cooking time. Even with all that, it came out wonderfully, and I’ll definitely use this recipe again. Thanks again for posting such a great (and forgiving) recipe! Happy holidays!
Oops, forgot to mention that i used oat milk as well. ^^