Baileys Irish Cream Cake is a dense & moist cake loaded with flavor. It’s a simple recipe that that is bursting with flavor from the included Irish Cream liquor. Make it for St. Patricks Day for a tasty & easy holiday dessert!

 

We’re not sure what it is about Saint Patrick’s Day that gets our sweet tooth going. Desserts with Irish flare are great for parties or after a savory dinner at home. We’ve shared quite a few delicious recipes for the holiday. This Baileys Irish Cream Cake is my husbands favorite. I highly recommend my Baileys Cheesecake and Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Frosting recipes if you are looking for desserts with chocolate.

This Baileys Irish Cake starts with a yellow cake mix along with a special ingredient to make it even better: instant pudding mix. Adding pudding mix to cake mix yields a tastier, denser, and more moist cake then with just cake mix alone! Of course, we also added in plenty of Bailey’s Irish cream to get that amazing flavor in there too.

Baking this Baileys Bundt Cake with a chopped pecan topping will give you a delicious cake already but we took it another step further. We melted together some butter and sugar real quick to make an Irish Cream glaze.

Why you’ll love this simple Baileys Irish Cream Cake Recipe

• This cake recipe is so easy, we’re sure anyone can make it! It’s as simple as making a cake mix- just with the added pudding mix, pouring in some Irish Cream and making the Baileys glaze at the end.
• Speaking of the pudding and glaze, those two added steps go a long way in making this a tasty and moist cake you’re going to love! The instant pudding mix trick allows the cake to become a bit more dense-making it great for handheld snacking.
• Like any good cake recipe, our Baileys Cake will impress. The flavor is wonderful and most everyone will be asking you for the recipe.

Baileys Irish Cream Cake Ingredients

What’s great about this tasty Baileys Irish Cream Cake is that you’ll probably have a lot of the ingredients on hand already! Check your fridge and pantry before running to the store- here’s all you’ll need for this easy cake recipe:

• Pecans – We used pecan halves and chopped them quite fine.
• Yellow Cake Mix – We used this Pillsbury cake mix but you could use Betty Crocker cake mix or any other cake mix brands.
• Vanilla Pudding Mix – Adding pudding mix to cake mix is a perfect cake mix hack that works with this Irish Cake recipe! It helps your finished cake more dense, more moist, and even tastier.
• Eggs
• Baileys Irish Cream – Or any other sort of Irish cream liqueur you can get your hands on. There’s no need to worry about this recipe tasting too boozy or anything- most or all the alcohol should end up getting cooked off.
• Vegetable Oil
• Butter
• Sugar – We just went with a granulated white sugar here.

See recipe card for quantities.

How to make Irish Cream Cake with Baileys

This Baileys Irish Cream Cake is so easy- if you’ve ever made cake from cake mix before, it’s about as easy. Here’s all you have to do to make this tasty cake for yourself:

• Start by heavily greasing a bundt pan with either cooking spray or shortening. Once greased, sprinkle the chopped pecans evenly across the bottom of the bundt pan and set aside.

• In a large bowl, first combine yellow cake mix and vanilla instant pudding mix. Once combined, add in the eggs, Irish Cream Liqueur, and vegetable oil. Beat together until blended- an electric mixer make this part easy!

• Add your cake batter to the prepared bundt pan and then let bake in a 325 degree oven for about 45 minutes– until a toothpick poked into the center pulls clean. While the cake cools, start preparing glaze by first melting butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

• Once melted, add water and sugar before bringing the whole mixture to a boil. Stir constantly and let cook for 5 minutes.

• Add some Irish cream to your butter glaze and optionally let cook another minute or two if you want to cook off most of the alcohol. Remove from the heat and set aside.

• Turn your cake out onto a serving plate. Grab a wooden toothpick or wooden skewer and start poking holes into the top and sides of the cake. This is going to help the cake absorb the glaze.

• Start drizzling or brushing the glaze over the top and sides of the slightly cooled cake, letting the cake absorb the glaze each time before adding more. Repeat until all glaze is used and serve. I like to use a glass measuring cup with a pour spout to help with this process.

Substitutions

While there is a few ingredients here in our Baileys Irish Cream Cake that can’t really be swapped out, there still is some room for substitutions. In case you need to change things around, here’s a few easy substitutions you can try:

• Pecans – Pecans are pretty easy to find at your local grocery store, but maybe you want or need something different. Similar nuts to pecans include walnuts- probably the closest pick- or hazelnuts if you want something a bit more rich and sweet. For some nut-free pecan substitutes, try some sort of oatmeal crumble or maybe even some granola.
• Cake Mix– You could go ahead and make your favorite yellow cake from scratch for this recipe if you like.
• Vegetable Oil – Really, this can be any neutral flavor oil of your choice. Vegetable oil is the most common but you could also use canola oil or grape-seed oil. If you don’t mind or want the extra flavor, you could also sub in something like butter or coconut oil as well.
• Sugar – We just used a white sugar because we really wanted the flavor of the Baileys Irish Cream to show through in the glaze. If you wanted a richer, more caramel flavored glaze, you could easily sub in some brown sugar instead.
• Baileys Irish Cream – You could consider using an Irish Whiskey in the cake. I have not tried it but, I think it could work. Obviously, you would need less. Let us know if you give it a try. Also, they make non-alcoholic creamers that could be added instead.

Variations

Make sure you give our Baileys Irish Cream Bundt Cake recipe a try as-is before you start toying around with it- we think it tastes great already! Once you’ve had a chance to make it and try it once, here’s a few ideas you can mess around with next time you make it:

• Chocolate Baileys Cake – We went with a yellow cake mix for our Baileys Cake just because we really wanted that Irish cream liqueur to stand out. If you wanted to make the cream take a bit of a backseat in this recipe, you could make your Baileys Irish Cream Cake using chocolate cake mix instead. Add some instant chocolate pudding mix and you’ll have a tasty Baileys Chocolate Bundt Cake or more like a Baileys Chocolate Fudge Cake.
• Baileys Irish Cream Sheet Poke Cake – Going with this bundt cake pan helps us get this more traditional cake look with our Baileys Cake. If you wanted to, you could make this cake in all sorts of different pans- like a sheet pan (9×13) if you would like a sheet cake.
• Baileys Cream Cheese Frosting – Don’t want a glaze on your cake and prefer more of a frosting or icing? Then swap it out! Use the Bailey’s Frosting Recipe I have shared in my recipe for Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey’s Frosting.

Storage / Freezing

Storage: If you’re loving this cake and plan on eating it sooner rather than later, it should be fine kept airtight at room temperature for 1-2 days. We’d recommend keeping it in the fridge if you’re keeping it any longer. Kept in an airtight container in the fridge, expect it to last 5-6 days- maybe even 7!

Freezing: If you want to freeze this St. Patrick’s Day Cake, you’ll want to let it cool completely before wrapping in plastic wrap and/or aluminum foil. Transfer to the freezer and keep for 3-4 months. Let thaw overnight in the fridge before serving.

Other St. Patrick’s Day Dessert Ideas

Looking for other green St. Patricks Day Dessert ideas? Try these:

• Easy Shamrock Pie
• No Bake Mint Oreo Cheesecake
• Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
• CopyCat Shamrock Shake

St. Patrick’s Day Dinner Ideas

Other

Corned Beef & Cabbage

Bread

Irish Soda Bread

Main

Easy Shepherd’s Pie

Other

The Best Colcannon