Oh boy, I hadn't bought cake mixes to notice. What flour do you use for cake baking? Dd wanted to máke a vanilla cake but but ended up with near bread texture.
:
I always use the kind of flour the recipe calls for- usually All Purpose-
but I have learned to always, always sift my flour
before measuring-
mostly because I was sick and tired of getting inconsistent results from the same recipe.
Sifting works.
The recipe I use for a golden Vanilla cake is from Gesine Bullock-Prado and can probably be found at this site:
http://www.gesine.com/
Her site has changed and I cannot access it from where I am now but here is the recipe that I have saved in my microsoft word recipe file:
"VANILLA CAKE
Ingredients:
8 ounces softened butter
2 cups sugar
5 room temperature eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup non-fat buttermilk
Equipment:
Three 8" cake rounds
Non-stick cooking spray
Parchment paper
Rubber spatula
Stand mixer with whisk attachment
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325.
Spray the cake rounds with non-stick spray. Tear or cut parchment into rounds to cover the bottom of each pan. Spray the top of the parchment round once it's in place.
Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside in a bowl or onto a sheet of parchment paper.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. At least 5 minutes on high speed. I mean it. It if takes longer, it takes longer. Scrape sides of bowl every few minutes using the whisk attachment or a rubber spatula. This is crucial. Otherwise you're going to be left with errant chunks of butter in your finished batter. You'll get little pockets of butter and sugar in the finished cake, crunchy divots in an otherwise beautifully moist cake. Patience!
Add eggs one at a time. Making sure each egg is perfectly incorporated before you add another. Scrape down sides of bowl after every few eggs. Add vanilla extract and/ or vanilla seeds.
Add flour and buttermilk in alternative pours, about 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of buttermilk each go. Mix on slow speed and scrape the bowl during the process. I know, it's a pain in the butt. It's worth it.
Once everything is well incorporated, use a plastic
spatula to fold the batter a few more times to make
perfectly sure you've got everything will mixed.
Divide the batter between your cake pans. Bake in preheated oven for twenty to forty minutes. Check for doneness by pressing gently on the cake. If you leave an indent, not done. If it bounces back gently without leaving a mark, done. If the cake doesn't budge when you poke it, over done. Start over. Waste of expensive ingredients. So be Johnny or Joannie on the spot.
Let your cake cool completely before filling."
I will say that I make this in two 9 inch round pans with no problem.
In fact, I made this for my husband's birthday last week- substituting coconut extract for part of the vanilla, and coconut milk for the buttermilk- but I also added some buttermilk powder along with the flour.
I frosted it with a 7 minute frosting and thawed frozen coconut (similar to fresh grated coconut) and it was DIVINE.
And if you love Vanilla like I do- I buy Vanilla Bean Crush from King Arthur flour. Best Vanilla Ever- with tons of flecks of vanilla bean in it- and they do not down size their products!
