Starting with the Basics: Yellow Cake and Chocolate Frosting

Officially I have started baking for the purposes of creating FTLOB into something bigger.  Yesterday I sat down and tackled the basic of the basics: yellow cake. 

I could have started with all the crazy, delicious flavors I wanted to start with, but at the end of the day yellow is the most common. 

For this recipe I decided to halve it because we cant eat that many cupcakes.  But either I didnt fill my cups up enough (which I think I did) or one full recipe makes 40 cupcakes. 

Recipe for yellow cake: Makes one cake of 22-24 cupcakes (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

4 cups + 2tbs of cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted room temp butter

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 large eggs room temp

2 cups buttermilk, well shaken

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter or line pan with parchment paper (or cupcake liners)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl.  

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Then add vanilla.  Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well incorporated and scraping sides.  

At low speed, add buttermilk until just combined.  Your mix looks curdled and very liquidy.  Dont worry

Add the flour mixture in three batches mixing until just covered.  The key is to not OVER mix.  

Fill your pan and bake 30-45 mins ( I would start checking around the 25 min mark)

While those were out cooling, I decided to make a chocolate frosting.  Who doesnt love chocolate and yellow cake?

Recipe for Chocolate Frosting: (I also halved this) (adapted from Crazy About Cupcakes)

6 tbs butter, room temp

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups confectioners sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey unsweet)

1/2 cup milk (use as much as you need to get your consistancy)

Cream butter and vanilla together in a bowl.  Better yet, dont run out of vanilla.  I did.  In separate bowl, combine sugar and cocoa.  Add dry ingredients to butter mix.  Then add milk slowly while mixing.  Add as much or as little as you need.  I needed more than what it called for. 

Mix mix mix.  

Here is the final product:

For me, I am not into towering frosting that takes over the cake.  BUT I also like frosting that holds its shape.

Verdict: Its time to invest in a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and an oven thermometer.  I personally do not like working with confectioners sugar for frosting because its way too sweet.  A mixer would have come in handy here because the frosting needed to be mixed for a long time.  It fell flat. 

An oven thermometer would have been nice because until I can buy an oven I know will work, I am stuck with a 30 year old apartment oven that does not heat well.  The outsides of the cupcake were a little too done, while this inside was moist. 

They were still really good!

I am going to start experimenting with different techniques on how to make the perfect moist yellow cake.  Not bad though for the first run.