Hot Milk Cake

Making a cake from scratch can be a stressful, time-consuming, and fussy affair. You might have to wait for butter to soften for hours, separate eggs so you can whip the whites into a voluminous meringue, or in the case of air-leavened cakes, cross your fingers and hope that your cake rises without the aid of chemical leaveners. This is where the hot milk cake—also known as the hot milk sponge—comes in. The tender, airy cake is almost as delicate as a chiffon cake or genoise, but with just enough heft to feel like a lighter version of a vanilla butter cake. It's a dessert that’s delicious on its own, as an accompaniment  to ice cream, used as a base for an icebox cake, or layered with buttercream. Plus, it's fantastically easy to make. 

Though you do need an electric mixer for hot milk cake, there’s no room temperature butter involved and no need to separate eggs. Traditionally, the cake is made by whisking whole eggs with sugar until pale and doubled in volume, drizzling in hot milk and butter, then adding the flour, baking powder, and salt. The result is an airy, tender sponge that’s delicious enough to eat on its own, but also versatile enough to be an everyday snacking cake or used to make a layered confection like the Boston cream pie.

A Brief History of Hot Milk Cake

Recipes for hot milk cake date back to the early 1900s; one of earliest recipes I found was in the 1906 Home Department Cook Book published by Boylston Congregational Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. A recipe credited to one Mrs. Murray instructs readers to pour hot milk and butter into eggs whisked with sugar, flour, and baking soda. Another recipe from Amy Littlefield Handy’s 1911 book What We Cook on Cape Cod calls for scalding half a cup of milk with “a piece of butter the size of a large English walnut” and pouring it into a mixture of eggs “well beaten” with sugar.

Hot milk cake became increasingly popular through the 1900s. The cake—versatile, foolproof, and what an unnamed writer describes as “inexpensive and easy to make” in a 1948 edition of the St. Louis Star and Times—became a go-to recipe for many home cooks. An article published in The Virginian-Pilot in 1955 remarks at the surprising number of “interesting things” one can do with a hot milk sponge, noting that it “serves as basis for many a delicacy,” including Rocky Mountain cake, a dessert garnished with raisins, coconut, and pecans. 

Though hot milk sponge doesn’t get quite the level of stardom as other cakes like chiffon, bakers in the know continue to appreciate hot milk cake for its ease, versatility, and tender crumb. In 2010, former Baltimore Sun food columnist Julie Rothman praised the cake. “It is extremely adaptable,” she writes, “perfectly delicious served plain or dressed up with fresh berries or just about any type of frosting or glaze you can come up with.” 

Like many other bakers past and present, I turn to hot milk cake when I need a foolproof dessert that won’t let me down. I divide the batter and bake it in two or three round aluminum cake pans when I want to make an layer cake, and if I have friends coming over for coffee, I’ll bake it in a Bundt pan and serve it sliced with a dollop of whipped cream and a dusting of powdered sugar. My recipe below requires just 30 minutes of active time, making it the cake I turn to when I need dessert in a flash.

Why Hot Milk?

It’s unclear why the milk in traditional hot milk cake recipes had to be hot; I suspect it’s because adding cold milk to a cake batter with warm melted butter would seize the butter. Since bakers had to melt the butter, it made sense to heat the butter and milk together. Below, I’ve shared my version of hot milk cake, which—surprise!—does not require hot milk at all. The recipe is the result of many rounds of tweaking and experimentation. Is it a hot milk cake? Technically, no. But it tastes like one and looks like one, and the resulting cake is, dare I say, even more fluffy and tender than an actual hot milk cake. Here’s how to make it.

5 Tips for Making a Tender Hot Milk Cake

Butter and flour your pans. To prevent your cake from sticking to the pan, I recommend greasing the pan with butter and lightly dusting the pans with flour. This creates a barrier that prevents the fat from melting directly into the cake batter, while also making it easy to turn out once it’s cooled.

Use whole eggs—and whisk them well. The cake’s airy texture comes from whipping whole eggs, which traps air bubbles that expand in the oven as the batter bakes. Though whole eggs don’t expand quite as much as egg whites, a foam made with whole eggs can still swell up to five times its volume, something Lamb noted in her genoise recipe. Plus, lecithin, a protein found in egg yolks, is a powerful emulsifying agent, and helps stabilize the foam, making it less finicky than a batter made with just egg whites. Whisking the eggs until pale, thick, and doubled in volume results in a sturdier foam that’s less likely to deflate than a batter made with poorly whipped eggs, allowing you to incorporate the flour without fear of deflating the batter. 

Skip the butter and use oil instead. Trust me. I’ve been making an iteration of this cake for years; I shared the original version in my recipe for Boston cream pie, where I call for a hot mixture of half-and-half and butter. In the recipe below, I’ve opted for a mixture of milk and a neutral oil instead. Though I love the rich flavor of butter, there are a few benefits that come with using oil. 

Most American butters tend to have a butterfat content of 80 to 82%, with the remaining 18 to 20% consisting of water and milk solids. Oil, on the other hand, is 100% fat. As we detailed in our gluten explainer, fats limit gluten development in doughs and batters by coating the gluten proteins glutenin and gliadin. Using oil more effectively inhibits gluten development, producing a softer, more tender cake.

Opting for oil also means there’s no need to heat up the milk and butter in the microwave or on the stovetop—all you have to do is combine milk and oil in a measuring cup and pour it into the mixture of whipping eggs and sugar.

Tap out large air bubbles. Excessively large air bubbles can result in an uneven crumb and an unstable cake that lacks a uniform structure and collapses as it cools. Gently tapping the batter-filled pans on the counter two to three times before baking helps eliminate large air bubbles and results in a more even crumb that’s less likely to cave in as it cools.

Customize it as you please. Enjoy it with a dusting of powdered sugar, frosted with buttercream or chocolate ganache, or with fresh fruit and whipped cream. And if you can’t be bothered, it’s delicious plain, too.