This classic white cake is moist, soft, and fluffy and is topped with a silky vanilla frosting. Follow our pro tips to make sure your cake is the best ever.
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00:00Hey everybody, it's Justin here
00:01in the Delish Kitchen studios.
00:03I am genuinely kind of just like a piece of New Jersey trash
00:08and as such, I like trashy things,
00:10specifically trashy desserts, cosmic brownies,
00:13the bottom of a Tate's cookie bag
00:15where it's just the crumbles.
00:17But sometimes I do wanna be a little elegant
00:19and this dessert is definitely elegant baby.
00:23A white cake that is beautiful.
00:26It has like a little delicate white crumb
00:28and a really luxurious buttercream.
00:31It is a little bit out of my comfort zone
00:34but I do like to go off sometimes
00:36and we're gonna do it together.
00:37Let's do it.
00:38With any baked good or cake,
00:39it's always going to start with creaming
00:42two of the staples of the American sweets diet.
00:44That's gonna be butter and sugar baby.
00:46So into the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment
00:50or with a hand mixer,
00:51I'm going to be adding two sticks of butter and some sugar.
00:55Then we're gonna let it rip baby.
00:56It's gonna go for like three, four minutes
00:58just until it's nice and light and fluffy.
01:00Then I'm gonna add a little bit of vegetable oil,
01:02mix that until just combined.
01:04All right, this is looking well creamed
01:07and now we can go in with more ingredients.
01:09If you're thinking, what is a white cake?
01:12Let me tell you.
01:13Cause obviously you've heard of like vanilla cake
01:14but usually what comes to mind is that like bright yellow,
01:17delicious cake that I happen to love.
01:19The key difference between these two,
01:20this is still flavored with vanilla
01:22but a couple of things that are gonna be different.
01:24One, we're gonna be using only egg whites
01:26instead of egg yolks.
01:28The thing that gives cake like normal egg cake,
01:31that golden color is the yolk.
01:32So by adding only whites,
01:34we're keeping these a little bit lighter
01:36and we're also not adding in the yolk
01:38that will change the color.
01:39In addition, we're gonna be using vanilla extract
01:41and almond extract but we don't want to color our cake
01:44to make it darker
01:45cause those things are naturally usually brown.
01:47So we're gonna be using clear extract.
01:49So it's just both vanilla and almond
01:51cause I fricking love almond extract
01:53but they're gonna be clear
01:54and that won't color our batter as well.
01:56Go ahead and add your egg whites
01:58while the machine is running in three additions.
02:01Then we're gonna add our vanilla extract
02:03and our almond extract.
02:04The next secret and the next ingredient
02:06to this cake is sour cream.
02:09Egg yolks bring a lot of like richness and fat to our cake.
02:13So this is going to sort of replace that
02:16and add some rich creaminess
02:17as well as like a very subtle tang
02:20that you're gonna taste like very subtly,
02:22basically just detected the back of your mouth
02:24while you're eating it.
02:25That mixed up really well together
02:27and I forgot to mention this earlier,
02:29all of your ingredients should be room temperature.
02:31That is like a huge key to making a really cohesive,
02:34really amazing cake batter
02:36is making sure that not just the butter
02:38which needs to cream but like things like eggs,
02:40things like sour cream and milk
02:42should all be room temperature.
02:44Now we're gonna mix in all of our dry ingredients
02:46and you might be thinking that
02:47why would we have to whisk them all together
02:49before they go into a high powered beater?
02:51That's because it really just does help
02:53incorporate those things together
02:54and make sure that the leaveners are well distributed.
02:57So into our bowl of all purpose flour,
02:59we're going to be adding baking soda,
03:02baking powder and a little bit of kosher salt.
03:04Whisk that up nice, nice
03:06and then we're gonna add about half of that
03:08into our mixer, whisk that up until it's nice and combined.
03:11Then we're gonna add some room temperature milk
03:14and then finally go in with the remaining
03:15half of our dry ingredients,
03:17making sure to not over beat it
03:18and just getting all the dry streaks out,
03:20no lumpy clumpies and then that will be our batter made.
03:25This is our beautiful white cake batter.
03:28It really does like, it's kind of eerie
03:30to see a cake batter that's just white.
03:32Honestly, when I've made this in the past,
03:34I've felt that way because you're so used
03:36to seeing that beautiful golden cake
03:37but that doesn't mean that this isn't delicious.
03:38In fact, this is very delicious.
03:40So we're going to get it into our cake pans.
03:42We have three matching eight inch cake pans.
03:45I'm gonna go ahead and grease it.
03:47You can grease it however you want
03:50and we also have some parchment rounds
03:53that we're gonna place in here.
03:55That's gonna be for easy removal once we are baked.
03:58We're gonna go into each pan with equal amounts of batter.
04:02You can be crazy like me and get a scale
04:04and measure out exactly how much
04:06or you can just eyeball it if you want something
04:07a little bit more rustico or a little bit more
04:10just like relying on your volume awareness.
04:14Then you can just use your spat or an offset,
04:16smooth it out on top and we'll get ready to bake.
04:19Our cakes look beautiful and they're perfectly portioned
04:22so they're gonna go into a 350 degree oven
04:25for 25 to 30-ish minutes,
04:28basically just until you put a toothpick in
04:30and it comes out dry and you wanna be watching
04:33because that can happen quickly
04:34and you wanna take it out as soon as that happens.
04:36All right, watch your cakes.
04:38The frosting for this cake
04:39is a simple American buttercream.
04:41I can almost guarantee you've made this at home
04:43and if you haven't, it's super easy.
04:45To the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment
04:48or in a big bowl with a hand mixer,
04:49we're gonna add a bunch of sticks of very softened butter.
04:52That's the key here.
04:52That's what's gonna make a difference
04:53in making it easier to make.
04:55Then we're gonna start beating that
04:56for like 30 seconds to a minute
04:59until it's nice and fluffy.
05:01And then we're gonna gradually start adding in
05:02a bunch of confectioner's sugar.
05:04This is the bulk of our frosting.
05:07We're gonna keep adding and adding and adding
05:09until it is all incorporated.
05:11Then we're gonna add the cream,
05:13a bit of clear vanilla extract like from before
05:15and some salt.
05:16Beat that all together.
05:17If you still feel that your frosting
05:18is maybe a little thick,
05:19you can add a little bit more cream
05:21but this is looking good to me.
05:22It's me, DJ Cake Maker.
05:26Ay!
05:27I hated it.
05:28I hated it as soon as I did it.
05:29Okay, we're gonna get started decorating our cake.
05:31I'd say having a rotating cake stand
05:33if you wanna be a serious cake decorator
05:36is almost necessary.
05:37It's not totally necessary
05:39but it really does help you out,
05:40especially for someone who's like,
05:41doesn't do it as often as others.
05:43Something I will do after I've trimmed the cakes,
05:45I will pick out the plate that I wanna serve the cake on
05:48and put it on my rotating cake stand.
05:50This means I don't have to worry about
05:51transferring it and everything
05:53and if it doesn't have a super high rim,
05:55it should be easy to decorate like this.
05:58So, first thing we're gonna do,
06:00any good cake decorating step,
06:01we're gonna take a little bit of frosting,
06:02dab it right into the middle of the plate
06:04and then place our bottom cake layer on there.
06:07That's gonna prevent the cake
06:08from moving around as we decorate it.
06:10Then we're gonna add a bit of frosting on top,
06:12flatten it out, rotating the cake stand,
06:15using that to help us to spread out that even layer,
06:18add in our next layer, another layer of frosting
06:21and then finally, we're gonna finish with our final cake
06:23and we're gonna put the flat side
06:25that was on the baking dish up
06:27so we have that beautiful flat top
06:29because I haven't done the best job trimming
06:31so I wanna hide it at least on top to make it look perfect.
06:34Also, I'd say if your layers are uneven,
06:37I would take, like if there are two that are most similar,
06:39I would put them on the outside
06:40and put the thinner or thicker one in the middle
06:42or you could just be like me and have janky cakes
06:44that don't all match, then we're not gonna care.
06:46Once you have the layers stacked up,
06:48you can put a bunch of frosting on top
06:49and start smoothing it out,
06:50letting the excess frosting fall to the sides of the cake.
06:54Then you can start using a bench scraper
06:56or a straight line to slightly pull against
06:59as you turn the cake stand
07:01and that will create those flat side edges.
07:04You don't have to do this but I really want to.
07:05I'm gonna top the cake with some beautiful
07:08little white nonpareil sprinkles and now we can serve it.
07:11I feel like I should be in a tea room
07:15with some nicer older women surrounding me
07:18and just giggle, giggle, giggling over pots of tea with this
07:22and taking our little baby bites of cake.
07:26This really does, I don't know if it's placebo
07:27because of how it looks,
07:29but it really does taste different
07:30than a normal vanilla yellow cake.
07:33It tastes lighter.
07:34I think it's because we used egg whites
07:35and sour cream instead of yolks.
07:38I also love the addition of almond extract in this.
07:41It adds an extra dimension of flavor
07:43so it's not just vanilla in your face.
07:45And I know that the recipe says that sprinkles are optional
07:47but these little white nonpareils
07:49give you a little like crunchy crunch
07:51at the top of each slice that I really like.
07:53I think this is a great celebration cake.
07:55I genuinely believe you could probably do
07:57six or seven more layers of different sizes
07:59and make this a wedding cake.
08:01A little side of berries would be nice with this.
08:04I think that'd be really great.
08:05I don't know, this cake makes me really smile.
08:07It just makes me feel really accomplished and really fancy.
08:11I don't make a lot of layer cakes
08:13so I'm genuinely really proud of myself
08:14for how this came out.
08:16And if you want to challenge yourself culinarily,
08:17you can find amazing cooking projects
08:19here on delish.com.
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