Vanilla Cake

Name: Vanilla Cake
Total time: 75 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 2 ½ cup flour; 2 ½ tsp baking powder; ¾ tsp salt; ¾ cup butter (room temperature); 1 ½ cup sugar; 3 unit eggs (room temperature); 1 tbsp vanilla extract; 1 cup milk (room temperature)

Dessert · American

8 ingredients · 75 minutes · 12 servings

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327kcal5g protein13.6g fat46.3g carbs~$0.49/ serving*

Contains gluten, dairy, egg

Restrictions

Containsgluten · dairy · eggIt is in an ingredient you cannot leave out.

Diets

VegetarianPescatarianNo porkNo alcohol · check

Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.

Ingredients

Servings:

2 ½ cup	flour
2 ½ tsp	baking powder
¾ tsp	salt
¾ cup	butter (room temperature)
1 ½ cup	sugar
3 unit	eggs (room temperature)
1 tbsp	vanilla extract
1 cup	milk (room temperature)

Optional

Not counted above. The dish works without them.

2 tbsp

powdered sugar (for a simple finish)

Steps

Prep10 min
everything at room temperature
butter, eggs and milk out ahead — creaming is an emulsion, and cold ingredients split it; a curdled-looking batter bakes into a dense, greasy band at the cake's base
Whisk2 min
- flour
- baking powder
flour + baking powder + salt so the leavener is everywhere before it meets liquid — a pocket of baking powder is a bitter tunnel in the crumb
Mix5 min
medium-high, until pale and fluffy
- sugar
butter + sugar well past 'combined' — the sugar crystals are cutting millions of air cells into the fat, and those cells are most of the cake's rise; undercreaming here is why homemade layers come out squat
Mix3 min
one egg at a time
+ eggs singly, each fully absorbed before the next, then vanilla — dumped together they flood the emulsion faster than the fat can hold them
Fold3 min
alternating, flour in three, milk in two
dry and milk in alternating additions ending on flour, stopped at the last streak — flour that meets this much liquid wants to build gluten, and every extra stroke trades tenderness for chew
Bake30 min
350°F, two 8-inch pans, until a tester comes out clean
divided evenly, on the same rack — the layers are done when the edges pull from the pan and the center springs back; opening the door before 20 minutes drops the oven and the middle with it
Rest15 min
10 in the pan, then on a rack
cakes are structurally liquid at oven temperature — turned out hot they break under their own weight, left in the pan they steam soggy; ten minutes, then out to cool completely before any frosting touches them