With this cake, I meant to do the base color blue and the decorations white but I added the food coloring before I pulled out any icing because I just plain forgot. So I ended up with two different shades of blue which actually turned out better than I thought it would. My mom bought me a little turn table which is amazingly helpful for decorating as I can just turn the cake rather than trying to contort myself around it. I very nearly messed up the piping by sticking the piping bag in the fridge while I was putting the base icing on. Bad idea. This icing is mostly butter and it turned rock solid. I had to work the bad with my hands for quite awhile to warm it back up but the entire time I used it I just running into hard spots which messed up my piping.
As far as the recipe, I absolutely fell in love with the yellow cake recipe. It's in the top three, if not the best, yellow cake I've ever tasted. Very flavorful and moist (though I did feel like it dried out after a day or two - the recipe's author suggests painting a simple syrup over top before you ice it to seal in more moisture). When making it, I filled the pans about 3/4th of the way full because I had a lot more batter than I thought I would. I use typical cake pans that have about a 1.5 inch side. When they first started to cook, I got really worried that it was going to overflow and ruin everything. However, things settled down a bit and I was able to use them after leveling them*. It was really close though. I would suggest just barely filling the pans half full or using cake pans with 2 inch sides.
I wasn't a huge fan of the icing recipe, a Swiss Buttercream. Fresh, it's got a good mild flavor and a smooth texture. After its been refrigerated, it turns almost the consistency of ice cream because the icing is mostly butter. The consistency really turned me off. AND the food coloring that I used (gels, not the liquid stuff) stained your mouth quite a bit. I wasn't quite expecting that and I'm going to do some research to see if there is anything that won't do this. If you take a look at the link that the recipes came from, the author talks a lot about the icing taking a while to come together and being difficult to make. I honestly didn't have that much difficulty with it. Though I'm glad that I was thinking that it would take a while in the mixer to come together or else I would have pulled it too soon. You have to wait until it starts to clump just a bit. I was quite worried that I wouldn't have enough icing but I had just enough. Be careful not to waste any though.
Final verdict? This is likely be my go to yellow cake recipe. I'm still on the look out for my favorite vanilla/white icing.
*And by the way, I bought a $3 leveling tool from Wal-Mart's wedding cake section and it's fantastic! Sometimes I have to start the cut with a knife but it really helped get the cakes level and the same size. I'm always bad at eyeballing that.
Best Birthday Cake
via smitten kitchen
Ingredients:
4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease, flour, and/or parchment paper two 9 inch cake pans (those with 2 inch sides are better but 1.5 inch sides will work), whatever your preference is. I was out of parchment paper and liberally greased and floured mine and they came out just fine.
2. Cream together butter and sugar, until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add vanilla. Add eggs, one at the time. Add buttermilk and beat until just combined - the mixture will look curdled but that's okay. Don't worry.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients - cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add careful to the wet ingredients in three batches and beat until just combined.
4. Divide batter into your two prepared cake pans and bake for 35-40 minutes.
5. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Swiss Buttercream*
via smitten kitchen
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
26 tablespoons butter, softened (3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
1. Whisk egg whites and sugar over a double boiler (or a pot of water with a glass or metal bowl on top), until the mixture is smooth. This really doesn't take very long, maybe 5 minutes. Just watch it closely.
2. Move this mixture (as smitten kitchen says, make sure to wipe the bottom of your bowl so that you don't drip any condensation into the mix) and whip until it turns white and doubles in size. Again, you'll just need to watch it.
3. Add the vanilla. Add the butter, one stick at a time, to the egg white mixture. This shouldn't take very long. As soon as the stick incorporates, add the next one.
4. Let this mixture whip until it just barely starts to clump up. This took a few minutes for me but it can take awhile so be patient and keep an eye on it!
*This recipe can be a bit tricky so I would definitely suggest taking a look at smitten kitchen's step by step instructions with pictures.
2 comments:
I'll have to try the yellow cake recipe. I've been looking for one that measures up to the yellow cake from Gourmet Tiger. Ya know, the one that was underneath the flag on the red, white, and blue cake? mmm.. must bake soon.
Ooooh yes. That's our favorite cake! This yellow cake actually has a lot of flavor - I'm guessing from the buttermilk. But I'm glad you reminded me about the flag cake! I think i'll try to make one with this recipe for Memorial Day... though I'll need to find a good whipped cream style icing to go with it :)
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