Cake and Frosting - the recipes I used and what I thought of them.

So I mentioned some time last week that I made scones and planned to make cupcakes for my guy for his birthday. Funny how time flies. I had planned on writing up the cupcakes sooner than now, but here we are.


So I asked my guy if he preferred vanilla or chocolate, and his response was something along the lines of, "Can I have both?"

XD

I had only planned on making vanilla. But I went a looking for a recipe for chocolate too. No premade mixes this time around - mainly because I didn't have any cash to go out and get them, but also because we happened to have all the ingredients already.

First things first, I halved both recipes. I figured, one full cake & frosting recipe plus one full cake & frosting recipe equals TWO full cake & frosting recipes, right? So halve them and you're back to one? Right. Except I did not account for the fact that I was making fewer cupcakes than normal. I should have cut the recipes in to quarters. I ended up with 30 mini cupcakes and an extra almost-full-sized cake.

Oops. Ah well.

Now please allow me to share the recipes. (These recipes are FULL, not halved) I'll also link to the places I found them.



First, the yellow cake...

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Basic Yellow Cake

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (do not sift the flour)
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• Vegetable oil
• 1 stick butter (not margarine), softened
• 1-tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350°

Cut wax paper to fit the bottom of (3) 9 x 1 1/2-inch round pans. Spray the pans with cooking spray, place the wax paper in the pans and spray the paper.

In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, mixing well.

Measure the 1-1/4 cups of milk in a 2 cup measuring cup….then add enough vegetable oil to bring the liquid up to 1-1/3 cups.

Add the milk/vegetable oil mixture, butter and vanilla to the flour mixture and beat with an electric mixer on medium to medium-high speed for 2 minutes, scraping sides of bowl as needed.

Add the eggs and continue beating an additional 2 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake at 350° for 20 to 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near center of cake comes out clean, or until cake springs back when touched lightly in the center.

Cool cakes on wire racks for 15 minutes; remove from pans and cool completely.

Frost as desired.

Additional noxy Thoughts:
This cake claims to be a perfect yellow cake. While I enjoyed it, I can't say it's perfect. But then.. mayhaps I don't know how to judge a "perfect" yellow cake. It's just a yellow cake. lol





And now for the frosting used....

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Wedding Cake Frosting

• 1 cup butter 
• 1 cup shortening 
• 1/2 cup milk 
• 2 teaspoons clear imitation vanilla extract 
• 8 cups confectioners' sugar 

 Cream the butter and shortening together until smooth. Gradually add the sugar, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.


Additional noxy thoughts:
I chose a wedding cake frosting instead of a normal frosting because it's not as heavy as normal frostings. The added shortening makes it so the butter is not so overpowering. And since this frosting was not used for a wedding, I did not use CLEAR vanilla extract, which I suppose might have yellowed the frosting a bit. I did like this recipe though. Next time I might use more shortening to butter though, see if it can get even less buttery.





Chocolate cake and frosting..... (both are on the same recipe)

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Chocolate Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• ¾ cup cocoa
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Chocolate Frosting

• 1½ cups butter (3 sticks)
• 1 cup cocoa
• 5 cups confectioner’s sugar
• ½ cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon espresso powder

Cake Instructions
Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.
For the cake:
Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.
Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute to add air to the batter.
Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Frost cake with Chocolate Frosting.

For the Chocolate Frosting:
Add cocoa to a large bowl or bowl of stand mixer. Whisk through to remove any lumps.
Melt butter and pour into bowl with cocoa powder. Whisk together until well-combined.
Add sugar and milk to cocoa mixture by adding 1 cup of sugar followed by about a tablespoon of milk. After each addition has been combined, turn mixer onto a high speed for about a minute. Repeat until all sugar and milk have been added.
Add vanilla extract and espresso powder and combine well.
If frosting appears too dry, add more milk, a tablespoon at a time until it reaches the right consistency. If it appears to wet and does not hold its form, add more confectioner’s sugar, a tablespoon at a time until it reaches the right consistency.



Additional noxy thoughts:
I'm not a fan of chocolate cake. Given the choice between chocolate cake and nothing, 90% of  the time I will choose nothing. So don't be surprised when I say, this is just a chocolate cake.  The site claims it is the "best chocolate cake recipe ever". I would disagree... if I knew how to judge "best". Ha.

 I do know that I had difficulty with one of the instructions in the chocolate frosting though. I should warn you. The part that says "melt butter". Melting the butter seemed to ruin the entire recipe. If I ever try this again, I'm not melting it. Because I ended up with a very runny, chocolate soup by the time I finished whipping the ingredients together. I had to add a TON more powdered sugar - in the end there was more powdered sugar in this "half-recipe" than there is in the FULL recipe! By then, the cocoa added was essentially just color, so I added more. I ended up with a very rich chocolate frosting.

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And there we have it! I was actually in a bit of a hurry in making these, so I only nabbed a couple pictures.

There are the cupcakes. I fill a zippy bag with frosting and cut a corner off to do most of my frosting.



And here's the cake

Because I had to add all that extra powdered sugar to the chocolate frosting, I ended up with quite a bit more chocolate than vanilla frosting. So the middle has vanilla frosting. The bottom layer is yellow cake and the top is chocolate.

To get the lettering, I cut a smaller bit off the second corner in the vanilla frosting zippy bag, then pushed the frosting through that.



So there we have it!  Cake and frosting recipes. I should have a section for recipes in addition to the reviews section, eh? lol.