Let's Bake a Cake!

I am more of a cupcake person, but I wanted to try and bake a cake. For no other reason than pure practice. I pulled out my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook for inspiration. I decided to try a traditional yellow cake. I wanted to start with something easy, and eventually work my way up to more complicated cakes.

Yellow Butter Cake (makes one 9-inch layer cake)
--2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature (plus more for pans)
--1 1/2 cups AP flour, plus more for pans
--1 1/2 cups cake flour*
--1 tablespoon baking powder
--1/2 teaspoon salt
--1 3/4 cups sugar
--4 large eggs
--2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
--1 1/4 cups milk


*I could not find cake flour. With the help of my husband in the middle of the flour aisle at Publix, we googled and found that you can substitute AP flour for cake flour if needed. I used all AP flour for this instance. The cake did taste very good, but it took on the flavor of a pound cake due to the more dense flour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter the cake pans and then line with parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper and then dust the cake pans with AP flour.

Into a medium bowl, sift flours, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (~3-4 minutes). Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides as needed.

Divide batter in pans and smooth with an offset spatula. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until cakes are golden brown and a cake tester put in the center comes out clean (about 30-35 minutes). Transfer to wire cooling racks and let sit for 20 minutes to cool. Invert cakes onto wire racks and peel off parchment then reset the cakes onto the wire racks to cool completely.

The yummy buttery yellow cake