mmm, cake.

Here is a rare occurance: I wrote out an actual recipe, with timing and measurements.  But this slightly altered Betty Crocker recipe has become my current favourite basic cake recipe---it's simple, and while very tasty by itself, you can add anything to it to make it more interesting.  I dedicate this post to Tessa and Ifi, because they said words that made my heart flutter: "It's so yummy! Can I have the recipe?"


San's Betty Crocker's Silver White Cake
Prep: 10 minutes (yeah, right). Bake: 45 minutes. Cool: 1 hour 10 minutes.
Servings: ~12. Pans: 13"x9" rectangle, two 9" round pans, or three 8" round pans.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 5 large egg whites

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 F.  Grease and flour bottom and sides of pan(s).
2. Beat everything except egg whites with an electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds.  Use a spatula to scrape the bowl, then beat on high speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally.
3. Beat in egg whites on high speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl.  
4. Pour into pan(s).
5. Bake times:
   13"x9": 40-45 minutes.  9": 30-35 minutes.  8": 23-28 minutes
   Bake until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, or when cake springs back when touched lightly in centre.  
6. Cool rectangle in the pan on a wire rack. For rounds, cook 10 minutes, then remove from pans to wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Variations that I have done:

• Chocolate glaze: Cover pan with a chocolate glaze. ...I bet this would be deadly with a ganache.
• Blackberry chocolate: fill layers with blackberry filling and cover with chocolate glaze or chocolate buttercream. Make sure the blackberry filling is not liquidy, or else you end up with what looks like a beheaded cake.  Behold:

• Cinnamon swirl: sprinkle (okay, I mean dump) a bunch of cinnamon on top of the batter before baking, take a chopstick and swirl the cinnamon around.  After cooling, cover it with a simple powdered sugar icing.  Here is a quickly taken, phone-quality photo:

Ones that I have thought about, but haven't tried yet:

• adding dried fruit, especially raisins and pineapples, or mangoes!
• pumpkin cake!
• apple cake!

Some notes:

• instead of cake flour, substitute 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (not self-rising). This is the original recipe, and I haven't tried it, to be honest. I bought some cake flour a while ago to make a birthday cake with this recipe, and it turned out so well I didn't want to mess with it, and bought more cake flour to have around.
• instead of almond extract, use vanilla extract. Mmm vanilla extract.  I love the almond flavour in this, because it gives the cake itself some character. Also I don't normally give it 1 tsp, I give it 1 tsp and a little tiny splash.  This is me cooking, after all.

small world

Ben and I were both born in Vancouver, but didn't meet until we were in university, 18/19 years later.  But imagine this: my mother, who has been in the hairstyling industry for over 40 years, used to own a hair salon, and Ben's parents, having lived nearby for a year or two when they moved to Vancouver, both had their hair done at that very salon! Not only that, but after they moved to a different neighbourhood, his mother liked her stylist--one of my mom's employees--enough to keep going back.  I wasn't born yet, and my mom took a couple of years off once I had been born, so I don't think Ben and I met as babies, but it's still boggling to me. It's a small world after all!