It's the season for cozy fall flavors and all things spiced! This super moist spice cake is everything that you want in a cake- it is fluffy, tender, and has wonderful flavor!

We've filled and frosted this delicious spice cake with our orange spice cream cheese frosting.

The orange flavor in this recipe complements this spice cake perfectly, and we love to pair our spice cakes with cream cheese frostings!

Keep this homemade cake recipe in mind for your fall and winter celebrations, and anytime you're in the mood for cozy spiced goodness.

How to Make Spice Layer Cake

*You can find the full, printable spice cake recipe further down, but here is a quick rundown!

We use the traditional method of mixing for this spice cake, which gives us soft, fluffy cake layers.

Preheat: First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and grease and flour three 8 inch cake pans- we like to add a circle of parchment paper to the bottom also to prevent sticking!

Flour Mixture: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices (ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger). Whisk for 30 seconds to ensure that the dry ingredients are aerated and evenly distributed.

Buttermilk Mixture/Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Set aside.

Butter and Sugar: In the bowl of your electric mixer (fitted with a paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), add the softened butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the granulated sugar and brown sugar . Continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes (a bit longer if using hand mixer) until lightened in color and fluffy.

Eggs: Next, add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk is blended.

Alternating Dry & Wet Ingredients: With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of wet ingredients). After the last addition, mix just until combined.

Fill the Pans and Bake! Finally, we divided the batter between our three 8 inch cake pans and baked at 350 degrees F for 23-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.

Another sign of doneness is that if it springs back when the center of the cake is lightly touched, it's ready. Let cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes on a wire rack before turning out.

Homemade Spice Cake with Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting- So delicious and perfect for fall!

Freezing the Cake Layers

No matter what cake we are making, we always wrap and freeze our cake layers whenever time allows- it makes for a cake that is even more moist!

We wrap the freshly baked cake layers individually while they are still warm with a layer of plastic wrap and foil. (If you'd like, you can place each layer on a foil-wrapped cake board for more stability).

Then, into the freezer they go for at least a few hours. (They can stay in the freezer for up to a few months and will still taste as fresh as the day they were baked).

Remove from the freezer and allow to thaw while still wrapped until condensation forms on the outside. Then unwrap and bring to room temperature (or close to room temperature) before decorating.

Frosting the Spice Cake

For this homemade spice cake recipe, we went with an easy and delicious Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting. We used it as our filling too- the flavor is SO good and you can whip up a batch in no time!

What other frostings pair well with spice cake?

A simple cream cheese frosting is also a great choice, as well as our orange cream cheese frosting, whipped cream cheese frosting, classic buttercream frosting and more. You can hop over to our Frosting Recipes Section for even more ideas!

Decorating the Cake

To decorate, I used a star piping tip 21 to create the reverse shell borders around the top of the cake. Around the sides of the cake, I just gave the frosting a textured look with my offset spatula.

*Remember that cream cheese frostings like this Orange Spice frosting are softer than American Buttercream frostings.

If the frosting becomes too soft as you are working with it, you can pop it in the refrigerator for a few minutes to firm it back up again.

Love Fall Cake Recipes? Here are a few more of our Favorites!

We've made many popular fall cake recipes over the years! Here are a few more of our favorites:

Orange Spice Cake- Doctored Cake Mix

Pumpkin Spice Cake

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake

Gingerbread Cake

Sweet Potato Cake

If you love caramel cakes, spice cakes, pumpkin cakes and more, you've come to the right place. You can find more delicious, moist cake recipes for fall in our Collection of the BEST Fall Cake Recipes!

Enjoy the Recipe

We hope that you enjoy this recipe! If you give this spice cake a try, we would love for you leave a comment and photo below!

Spice Cake with Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

This scratch Spice Cake with Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting is moist and fluffy and has wonderful flavor! We love this cake year-round but especially for fall and winter gatherings!

Ingredients

For the Spice Cake Layers

1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup (200g) white sugar
1 cup (217g) light brown sugar (packed into measuring cup)
3 cups (342g) cake flour ( if you do not have cake flour, see Note below)
2 teaspoons (8g) baking powder
½ teaspoons (3g) baking soda
1 (6g) salt
2 teaspoons (6g) cinnamon
1 teaspoon (2g) nutmeg
1 teaspoon (1g) ginger
1 ¼ cups (296g) buttermilk
⅓ cup (64g) vegetable oil, we use canola oil
1 teaspoon (6g) vanilla extract

Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

1 ½ cups (3 sticks) (339g) unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ packages (339 g) cream cheese (no need to soften to room temp)
2 teaspoons (4g) cinnamon
½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger (2g) *sift if clumpy
1 teaspoon orange flavoring (4g)
1.5 Tablespoons Orange Zest (adjust to your liking)
6 to 6 ½ cups (690g - 748g) more if needed confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Instructions

For the Spice Cake Layers

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, grease, flour and add a circle of parchment or waxed paper to three 8x2 inch round pans
In a medium bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Whisk for 30 seconds to blend. Set aside.
In another bowl, add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Set aside.
In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and ix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugars (white and brown).
Continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes (a bit longer if using hand mixer) until lightened in color and fluffy.
Add the room temperature eggs one at a time mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of liquid ingredients). After last addition, mix just until combined.
Bake at 350 degrees for 23 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes then turn out.

For the Orange Spice Cream Cheese Frosting

Using your mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until well blended.

Add the flavoring, zest, and spices. With the mixer on low speed gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until it is a good piping consistency.

Notes

No Cake Flour? Here is a Substitution: If you do not have cake flour, measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour (plain flour in the UK). Remove 6 tablespoons ( 42g) and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch (42g) (cornflour in the UK). Whisk to blend the flour and cornstarch.