The Best Yellow Cake

I have always been a fan of box yellow cake batter. I mean its so good that I would look forward to licking the mixing spoon, throwing caution into the wind and ignoring the fact that I was consuming raw eggs because I was too impatient to wait for the cake to finish baking. As I have been expanding my baking skills, I figured that there had to be a recipe for the good old standard box yellow cake. Lucky for me, I stumbled across Bakerella, a blog dedicated to all things sweet, that allowed me to dust off all of the supplies I bought during my cake decorating classes and attempt. While browsing through all of the awesome recipes and wonderful pictures, I came across Bakerella's post about this Yellow Cake recipe . I have made this recipe twice now, and both times I received excellent reviews from my culinary test subjects. The first time I made this cake I made it in two various sized cake pans and made a two tier UT themed birthday cake. The second time I halved the recipe and made cupcakes in honor of the UT/OU game. Lucky for us, the food and fellow UT fans at the watch party made up for the game itself. 

Looks like I need to keep working on my fondant skills, my cake is lopsided!

Moist Yellow Cake 

Recipe courtesy of Bakerella (my changes in italics)

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter (room temperature)

2 cups of sugar

4 eggs (room temperature)

3 cups of sifted self-rising flour (I used 3 cups all-purpose flour with 4 1/2 tsp baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt)

1 cup of whole milk (room temperature) (I used 2% milk)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring (I omitted this)

Directions:

Yields one layered cake or approx. 18 cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour (3) 8 inch cake pans. (I used Baking Spray on one 8 inch cake pan and one 5 inch cake pan for the tier cake and two muffin tins for the cupcakes)

Using a mixer, cream butter until fluffy.

Add sugar and continue to cream for about 7 minutes.

Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each egg is added.

Add flour and milk (alternating to creamed mixture), beginning and ending with flour.

Add vanilla and butter flavoring to mix; until just mixed.

Divide batter equally into three two cake pans (or fill two muffin tins lined with cupcake liners about 3/4 full).

Hold each layer pan or muffin tin about 3 inches above your counter and carefully drop them flat onto counter several times to ensure release of any air bubbles. This will help you have a more level cake.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes (depending on your oven) until done.

Cool in pans for 5 – 10 minutes.

Remove and immediately wrap each layer in plastic wrap to seal in moisture (I didn't do this). 

Cool completely on wire racks.

Once cooled, you are ready to assemble your cake (or prepare frosting your cupcakes).