And it’s Wednesday again and that means I get to post a cake recipe for you from my vintage cake book, Cakes and Tortes 193 Sweet Treats for Every Occasion.
This is such a fun project, I love cake and this allows me to make cakes all the time and try new things. I would NEVER have made last week’s Lord Baltimore Cake but was extremely surprised that I loved it and I likely would have turned my nose up at this one as well.
How can you possibly make a decent cake without creaming the butter and sugar?
I think this is one of the best cakes I have ever made. It’s not super chocolate-y so if you want the deep, rich chocolate flavor go with something different but the crumb on this cake is divine. I could have easily served this to people and told them it was a doctored up box cake, although it didn’t have box cake flavor of course! But that is how light and fluffy this was.
Of course I didn’t get to try a proper slice of the cake because it ended up serving two purposes. The first, of course, being the cake for this project but the second was for a smash cake for my little Scarlett.
Scarlett turns 1 on saturday and since the thing to do these days is a smash cake photo shoot, I thought why not use this one?
I am pretty sure she enjoyed herself.
Of course she didn’t eat the ENTIRE cake, just most of the frosting and some of the actual cake so I snacked on it a little yesterday and completely loved it.
I think, if I was going to make the chocolate version again, I would ice it in a chocolate sour cream icing. Since the cake itself lacks in chocolate flavor it sort of needs something rich to go with it. I iced it with a simple vanilla buttercream, although I gave 7 minute frosting another go, since it beat me last week.
I was unsuccessful. I don’t know what the deal is with that frosting but after about an hour I gave up and went with the buttercream.
You could also make a yellow cake, simply omit the chocolate.
Seriously though, if you ever thought baking a homemade cake was to complicated, think again and make this one.
- 2 cups sifted cake flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup butter, room temperature
- 1¼ cups sugar
- 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk
- 2 oz chocolate
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM - 1 pound (4 sticks) butter, room temperature
- 5-6 cups powdered sugar
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Preheat your oven to 350˚ and prepare you cake pans. This recipe calls for two 8" pans, but I used two 6" and there was plenty of batter to make nice thick layers with a little left over. To prepare your pans, coat them in soft butter and then put a handful of baking cocoa powder in and tap so you get a nice coating of cocoa all over the butter, tap out the excess. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate. Stir it the whole time until melted so you don't risk burning it. Once melted, set aside to cool.
- In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.
- Place the eggs in a blender and pulse a couple times to break them up.
- Next add the rest of the ingredients to the blender in the order listed.
- Turn the blender on medium and blend for 2 minutes.
- Scrape the sides of the container and add ⅔ of the flour mixture. Blend until mixed, then scrape the sides again and add the rest of the flour, blend until completely mixed and smooth.
- Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pans about 10 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
TO MAKE THE BUTTERCREAM - Place the softened butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high for about 5 minutes. Turn the mixer off.
- Add the powdered sugar and then turn on low until the butter and sugar are combined and the mixture becomes smooth again.
- Start adding the cream a little at a time until you get the consistency you like and then add the vanilla extract.
- Then have fun frosting your cake!
- Huckleberry Plum Pie - January 1, 2017
- Fresh Mango Sorbet - July 17, 2016
- Steak Caesar Salad - June 8, 2016
