Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8×2 inch round pans.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt for 30 seconds. Set aside

In another bowl, add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla.  Set aside.

In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and mix at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue to mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the egg yolk is blended.

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

Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon (for sprinkling as listed above). Divide cake batter between the three prepared 8 inch pans and sprinkle the mixture over the tops of cake batter before putting into the oven. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just few crumbs attached. Let cool 10 minutes and turn out.

Mix together and set aside.  This will be used to brush approximately 2 Tablespoons on the tops of each layer as you stack the cake.

This is used as a simple syrup on the layers. 

Cut the butter into slices and add to the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low to medium speed until the butter is softened and smooth.

Cut the cold cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, beating at low to medium speed until incorporated. If you are using a hand mixer you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit more.

Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar and cinnamon beating on low speed until blended. Cover the bowl with a towel to keep down the cloud of powdered sugar.

Increase mixing speed and beat until fluffy. Don't over beat or it will become too soft. If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate a short while to firm it up a bit.

**If you are making a dark brown swirl of frosting on top of the cake as we did, reserve ¼ cup of frosting as set aside.

This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix.

Will frost a 3 layer 8 or 9 inch cake.

Mix the cinnamon into the reserved ¼ cup of frosting. Adjust cinnamon amount to your liking, this amount gave us a nice darker color (and flavor). 

Load into a piping bag with the tip snipped away (or you can use a small round tip) and pipe the swirl onto the top of the cake.

After baking the cake layers, brush with the cinnamon sugar glaze (as instructed above), and fill and frost with the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting. If the frosting becomes too soft to easily frost with, chill in the refrigerator. I also like to chill my crumb coated cake in the freezer for about 15 minutes or so to firm things up before applying the final coat of frosting.

Optional: I then piped a swirl of the darker Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting for added decoration. I held the piping bag (tip snipped away) vertically and started piping in the center of the cake and spiraled outward.

I finished things off with french tip piping around the edges (using a tip 8B)- You can use any large star tip for this. I also piped a bottom shell border using a star tip 21.