White Velvet Cake

I decided to break in the canister of powdered buttermilk on a cake.  A red velvet cake is just a chocolate cake with buttermilk, so I decided to make one with only vanilla, which is a White Velvet.

Ok, that's not exactly true.  I tried to put vanilla chips in it as a path to a creamier texture.  They sank to the bottom in a redux of the cinnamon chip fail.  I'm leaving them out of this recipe and subbing more extract.

Proportions are going to look wrong in the photos because I used my adorable 4" cake pans on a 1/3 recipe.  Didn't prepare them well enough, which I'll also fix for this post.  Thought I could get away without flouring the greased pans.  Nope.

• 1 C AP flour
• *1 C Cake flour
• 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1-1/2 C buttermilk
• 1 Tb vanilla
• 1-3/4 C sugar
• 3/4 C butter, softened
• *3 eggs, room temperature
• *cream cheese frosting and decorations

1.  Grease two 9" cake pans, line bottoms with wax or parchment paper, grease again, and dust lightly with flour.  If using baking strips, start soaking them.  Preheat oven to 340º.

2.  Sift together both flours, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.  In a mixer, cream together sugar and butter until fluffy.  Add vanilla, then eggs one at a time, and whip to a pale yellow.

3.  Add flour and buttermilk in stages, stirring only to combine.  Pour into cake pans, using a scale to get the right amount in each pan.  Wrap with baking strips if using.

4.  Bake 25-30 minutes.  The top is going to brown early from all the sugar.  Cakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean.

5.  Cool in pans until you can hold them without gloves, about 5 minutes.  Flip out cakes onto a cooling rack and carefully peel off wax paper.  Allow to cool completely before frosting.  Can be wrapped and frozen to decorate another day.

Makes 1 9" layer cake, 12 to 16 servings

Difficulty rating :)