My younger son turned 1 year old! I have no clue where the previous year went. I still vividly remember all the blood tests, weekly doctor's appointments, and worrying about what we'd do with our toddler during delivery and subsequent stay in the hospital. Amusingly, my husband actually didn't remember that our awesome babysitter stayed at our house for 2 or 3 days while we were in the hospital and apparently thought our son had stayed with friends instead). Rather a big memory glitch in my opinion as one of the reasons I embarked on a mad hunt to find reliable paid care for our hospital stay as our closest friends live at least 45 minutes away. Plus, they have jobs and children of their own which might have made it challenging to drop everything and take our older child. Baby #2 arrived about 3.5 hours after I checked into the hospital and maybe a mere 4 hours since I was sitting in my OB's office telling her that I didn't think I was in labor only to find out I was more than 7 cm dilated. (*Sigh) Yet another opportunity for my husband to say "I told you so."
Getting off track here.
For my baby's birthday for whatever reason I thought he seemed like a white cake kind of guy. I love chocolate cake and had made my favorite chocolate cake for my older son's first birthday two years ago, but somehow I thought Baby #2 wanted a vanilla cake with a vanilla buttercream frosting. Hitting the cookbooks, I used a cake recipe from my big Gourmet cookbook and a frosting recipe from an old copy of Betty Crocker's Baking Classics.
Yellow Cake
2 3/4 c sifted cake flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 TBS butter (1.5 sticks), softened
1 1/2 c sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1 1.2 tsp vanilla
1 c whole milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two cake pans by lining them with parchment paper or buttering and flouring them.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter together until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and continue beating for 5 minutes more. With the mixer on low, gradually add flour and milk in batches until mixture is smooth.
Divide mixture evenly into pans. Bake 20-25 minutes until tester comes out clean and cakes are beginning to pull away from sides of pans. Cool 5 minutes in pan, then remove cake from pan to cool completely before icing.
Vanilla Buttercream
1/2 c butter, softened
4 c powdered sugar
2 TBS milk
2 tsp vanilla
Mix butter and powdered sugar until well combined. Beat in milk and vanilla until desired smooth consistency is reached.
No comments:
Post a Comment