Buttery Buttercream and Yellow Cake Goodness

I have NO recipe for white cake or yellow cake. In fact, I have no red velvet recipe or german chocolate cake recipe. I have only carrot cake or chocolate cake recipes. I was overdue for a new cake trial run.

I was on a search for a great moist yellow or white cake recipe. Thanks to bakerella.com (a great baking blog!) I found a yellow cake recipe I was willing to try.

Yellow Cake

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter (room temperature)
2 cups of sugar
4 eggs (room temperature)
3 cups of sifted self-rising flour
1 cup of whole milk (room temperature)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Beat butter until fluffy.

Slowly add in sugar. Beat for about 7 minutes.

Add in eggs one at a time

Add flour and milk alternatively, beginning and ending with flour

Mix in extract until just mixed.

Pour batter evenly into three greased/floured baking pans.

Bake for between 20-30 minutes, depending on oven.

After five minutes of cooling, remove from pan. If you greased your pan properly, it will come out with no sticking.

I let the cakes cool and freeze for a day. When I was bold enough to try a buttercream recipe for the first time, I decided to snag them from the icy clutches of my freezer and warm them up with a bit of strawberry sauce and buttery buttercream.

Extremely Buttery Buttercream

1/2C egg whites

1 C sugar

dash of salt

2 sticks + 6tbsp butter (cold but not hard)

1 tsp vanilla

On a double boiler, whisk egg whites and salt.

Keep whisking eggs while slowly adding sugar at fourth cup intervals until incorporated.

Keep eggs on double boil until the eggs no longer feel grainy when touched.

Transfer egg mixture to a mixer.

Mix eggs until the bowl is no longer hot (long time!) Scrape down sides of the bowl!

Slowly add in butter bits at a time until all is incorporated.

Whip until it is wonderful creamy frosting. Mine took about 10 minutes.

*note-- For my double boiler, I use a saucepan halfway full of water that has been boiling for a minute or two. I then add a smaller saucepan on top/inside of the saucepan that will sit on the edge of the bigger saucepan as to not touch the water or fall in. That, is a double boiler!

Strawberry Filling

pkg strawberries de-stemmed and cut

half-1 C sugar

Bring both ingredients to a boil and let it thicken. If you let it cook long enough, it will thicken.

"Layer Cake--- ASSEMBLE!!!!!"

One of my three layer cakes broke in half due to my lack of pan greasing skills, so this cake is only a two layer cake.

One layer went on my cardboard round, then I slathered the strawberry sauce *cooled* on top, leaving a little gap around the edge so the strawberries would not seep out into the white buttery buttercream frosting.

I put the second layer on top of the strawberries and dumped my buttercream on top! I smoothed it down and decided to fluff the top with a knife.

The cake overall was good! My husband said it was light and didn't feel full after one slice. That's fantastic news! He also critiqued my buttery buttercream as being too--- you guessed it--- buttery tasting. I would agree with him. I added some banana flavor to it to offset some of the butter and it still cut through like a bad splinter. Lesson learned! If you love butter, use no other recipe than this one!

Due to the snow I could not go out and get more powdered sugar or marshmallows for my fondant. I'll do it when the snow melts and after I find yet another great recipe, hopefully this time for a white cake. Dare I venture into the realm of pies next?