To begin our baking journey we are going to look at a basic white cake recipe. This comes from a family treasure, which I just happened to lift from my mother’s house. Obviously this addition is very loved.
The plan for today is to follow the recipe exactly, I won’t add any extra ingredients or techniques. It will be the most basic cake that we can build on.
8 tablespoons butter ( 1 Stick) softened
½ cup vegetable shortening
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
Preheat your oven to 365°
In a large bowl cream the butter, shortening, baking powder, sugar, salt, and extracts until fluffy (approx. 5 min) it should look something like this.
Next add in your egg whites one at a time mixing well after each addition. It will like something like this.
Next we are going to add the flour and milk, alternating dry and wet ingredients. To start add in one-third of your flour followed by half of your milk. Let it incorporate and start the next round, add one-third of your flour and the rest of your milk. Let it mix a little then add the remaining flour. You will want to scrape the sides and bottom a few times through the process.
Pour the batter into two greased and parchment lined 8 or 9 in round pans (To line the pan, cut a piece of parchment by placing the pan you are using on top of the parchment, trace around the pan and cut.)
Bake the cakes for 23-26 minutes (mine baked close to 25min ). To tell if it is ready stick your cake with a toothpick or a skinny stick like thing, if it comes out clean your good to go!
Let your cake cool completely before removing it from the pan.
Now for the frosting. I used American buttercream, it is my least favorite type but it is the easiest to make. For today well use the recipe from food network
2 sticks butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a mixing bowl mix together the butter and sugar, when it begins to come together add in the extract and milk ( I also added in a bit of coloring) beat the crap out of your frosting until it is soft and smooth.
I’m just going to give a little reminder that this is the baseline cake. And I mean that even in assembly. I didn’t trim or level my cakes I simply put them on top of each other and put buttercream in between and on top smoothing it as best as I could.
So now that our super simple cake is complete what do we think?
-How do we prevent crumbles? Can we tap the pans to knock the air bubbles out causing the cake to be more uniform?
-How can we create a taller cake so we can have two layers come out of one pan?
-Can we make the American butter cream so that it is more friendly to work with? Or do we just ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist?
-What can we make with our unused egg yolks?
-What makes cake flour so special and can we make our own?
Please ask any questions that you have or leave any answers behind. And always feel free to comment!
