The Glorious White Cake

  • The Glorious White Cake

    Fair warning: I have extolled the virtues of simplicity time and time again, and I’m going to wax on about it again in this post.  So if you’re not up for a soliloquy on the beauty of a simple thing like vanilla cake with vanilla icing, skip to this post on the Fudgy Orange Brownie Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing, which represents a study in all things unsimple.  (Still beautiful, mind you- how could chocolate ever not be a gorgeous addition to life?), but not exactly a refrainment of flavor.  (Refrainment needs to become a real word.)

    Simplicity implies an absence of complication.  Sometimes a complication-free dessert is just right.  Take for example the Classic Shortbread Cookie.  Or a giant hunk of Angel Food Cake.  The buttermilk in this cake does up the ante on the flavor complexity scale, but it’s still a nice and simple, plain-Jane sort of treat.  (Oh- when I refer to an “absence of complication”, don’t think I’m referring to the recipe itself.  You will need to beat and beat and beat and alternate wet with dry, and then beat again, but you won’t curse me for the preparation complexity after you taste this goddess-like cake.)

     Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s recipe…

    CAKE:

    1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour

    1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

    ½ teaspoon baking soda

    ¼ teaspoon salt

    ¾ cups + 2 tablespoons buttermilk

    1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

    ½ cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

    ¾ cup vanilla-infused sugar

    3 eggs

    BUTTERCREAM FROSTING:

    1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened to barely room temperature

    3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

    1/4 teaspoon salt

    1 tablespoon vanilla

    3 – 4 tablespoons milk or cream

    1. Preheat oven to 350˚, and grease two 9″ cake pans.
    2. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
    3. Pour buttermilk into a measuring cup and stir in vanilla.
    4. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar together (with an electric mixer at medium speed) until light and fluffy (about 4 minutes). Reduce the speed and add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between additions.
    5. Add alternating increments of the flour mixture and the vanilla-buttermilk, blending well after each addition (starting and ending with the flour mixture); this should take up to 5 minutes.
    6. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake about 30 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.  Remove from oven and let cool for 20 minutes on rack before unmolding from pans to finish cooling.
    7. FROSTING:  In a large bowl, beat butter for 3 minutes at medium speed.  Add 3 cups of sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat on low until combined.  Add vanilla, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 more minutes at medium speed.  Add remaining sugar if you are looking for a stiffer frosting, and add remaining milk/cream if you’d like a thinner frosting.  Slather on top of one layer, place another layer overtop and frost sides then top of cake.

    Tips:

    • No buttermilk?  Simply stir a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice into the milk to equal the total amount of buttermilk called for in the recipe.  Wait 5 minutes and it’ll clump up like buttermilk.  Gross, but good.  TOTALLY essential for the recipe- don’t think you can make this cake without it!
    • Why spend so much time creaming butter & sugar, and then after adding in each egg?  Just because.  It matters.
    • *No vanilla sugar?  Of course not, I know your first name isn’t Martha and your last name isn’t Stewart.  Just use regular sugar, and seriously consider the next point…
    • How to make the vanilla-scented sugar so you never have to go without again: get a big ziploc bag, fill it with sugar, and throw in the remains of your used, scraped vanilla beans.  Just let the sugar live with the bean scraps, that’s it.  (The beans still smell amazing and have oils or whatever that will infuse the sugar… causing it to smell and taste a bit like vanilla.  In a really subtle way.)
    • Cupcakes… can be made.  Sure!  Just check out this post here for timing, etc.
    • Frosting options are limitless.  Really.  This picture uses a simple buttercream, but you could use any chocolate or flavored icing on top- just note that your cake won’t be considered “simple” at that point.  (I will concede that “complex” IS good, though, too.)  I ended up doing a strange but slightly compelling porcupine look with my frosting, but you can go traditional and just smooth it out, of course.
    • Frosting note: make sure the butter isn’t melted or too soft when you start to make it… it should be the consistency of scoopable ice cream, so not too squishy (like how it can get when on the counter too long).
    • E n j o y !

     

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    July 25th, 2013 | More Sweets Please | No Comments | Tags: , ,

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