My ideal birthday cake? Vanilla bean cake with vanilla bean filling and almond buttercream. Yep. I am #basic and #boring. Vanilla cake is my favorite and if I ever have a wedding you bet your ass my cake will be PLAIN VANILLA AND NOTHING ELSE. This recipe is measured in grams not cups so PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU order a damn food scale. This recipe is from cake and cupcake god, The Scranline. I guarantee you have seen his incredible creations on Instagram, they are absolutely insane and I would pay $1,000 for one of his cakes.
what you need:
- 429g all-purpose flour
- 265g granulated sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 125g unsalted butter, softened
- 375ml of milk, room temperature
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 125ml vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp Greek yogurt (can substitute with sour cream)
- 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
what you need to do:
- Preheat oven to 320 degrees F. This cake bakes at a lower temperature but for a longer time, helping to bake it evenly so your edges don’t get brown/center is raw. That means your cake will end up DRY and we want MOIST!
- I typically make 6″ cakes, and this recipe makes enough for four 6″ layers, or three 8″ layers.
- Grease your pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. The parchment will help make sure your cake does not stick to the bottom of the pan. PLEASE DO THIS.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- This recipe uses the REVERSE CREAMING METHOD so we do not cream the butter and sugar together. Instead, we mix the butter into this dry mixture, which helps to create flat top, super moist, and dense cakes. My fave.
- Add your butter to your dry ingredients and on low until the mixture resembles crumbly sand. This will take a few minutes, do not rush it. PATIENCE IS KEY.
- Add milk, eggs, greek yogurt (or sour cream), oil, and vanilla bean paste.
- Mix on low speed until no dry ingredients are visible, stopping to scrape the sides and the bottom of the pan periodically.
- If you are adding food coloring to your cake, now is the time.
- Grab your cake tins, and place one on your food scale. Fill up a little less than 3/4 of the way and note the number on the food scale. Write. It. Down.
- Fill each pan with batter until it matches the weight of the first pan.
- Smooth the tops of each pan, bang them on the counter a few times to get the air bubbles out, and then bake (times per pan size below) until a toothpick comes out clean from the CENTER of the cake.
- If you are using 8″ pans: bake about 30 – 40 min. Set the timer for 20 min and then check every 10 min until they are ready. When you check at 20 min, rotate the pans.
- If you are using 6″ pans: bake about 20 – 30 min. Set the timer for 15 min and check every 10 min until they are ready. When you check at 15, rotate the pans.
- A few notes: if you don’t have 3 of each pan, no worries. Just make sure you write down the weight of the first batch, bake it, and then after you turn it out to cool, clean out the pan, re-grease and line it, and then weigh out your batter to match the first and continue this until you get all of your layers.
- Once you remove the pans from the oven, let them sit about 2 minutes and then VERY CAREFULLY turn them out onto a cooling rack. Let them cool COMPLETELY on this rack, do NOT TOUCH THEM. If you try to move one, it will crack or the top will peel off. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.
- Once they are COMPLETELY COOLED, you can use my Wedding Cake Buttercream to frost or whatever, use your own frosting. (Mine is the best).
