Today is my 26th birthday and it has been a great one! We had brunch at Du Jour with our friends Sara and Tim, took a walk on the trail at Haverford College, did some shopping at Costco and Crate and Barrel, ate dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, and finally, enjoyed some birthday cake! I decided that I wanted to celebrate with a homemade birthday cake this year. TC was nice enough to offer to buy one at a bakery for me, but I said that it would be fun for me to bake one! Plus, I scoped this cake out a few weeks ago over at Smitten Kitchen and have been wanting a reason to make it!
The yellow cake was delicious, moist and really quite easy to make. The frosting was a mixture of sour cream and semi-sweet chocolate with light corn syrup to get the frosting to your desired sweetness. I chose to use semi-sweet chocolate instead of bittersweet, and I think that was a good choice. The frosting was not too sweet with the semi-sweet chocolate. I feel like the bittersweet chocolate would make the frosting too bitter. If you like a sweeter frosting, this might not be the right one for you. You could definitely put a chocolate buttercream frosting with this cake, and it would taste great!
Other good birthday news....TC got me a Cobalt Blue KitchenAid mixer! I have been wanting one of these for years. I cannot wait to use it! My mom and stepdad will be visiting next weekend so I will definitely be whipping up something in the new mixer. Now I just have to come up with a name. Every lady in my family has named her mixer. My stepmom has the same color mixer and its name is Colby since it is cobalt blue. If you have any name ideas, leave me a comment! Here is a picture of the beauty! : )
Best Yellow Layer Cake
Yield: Two 9-inch round, 2-inch tall cake layers, and, in theory, 22 to 24 cupcakes, two 8-inch squares or a 9×13 single-layer cake
4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.
Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.
Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting
Cooking note: Be sure that your sour cream is at room temperature before you make the frosting.
Makes 5 cups of frosting, or enough to frost and fill a two layer 9-inch cake
15 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 teaspoons instant espresso (optional, but can be used to pick up the flavor of average chocolate)
2 1/4 cups sour cream, at room temperature
1/4 to 1/2 cup light corn syrup
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Combine the chocolate and espresso powder, if using, in the top of a double-boiler or in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Stir until the chocolate is melted. (Alternately, you can melt the chocolate in a microwave for 30 seconds, stirring well, and then heating in 15 second increments, stirring between each, until the chocolate is melted.) Remove from heat and let chocolate cool until tepid.
Whisk together the sour cream, 1/4 cup of the corn syrup and vanilla extract until combined. Add the tepid chocolate slowly and stir quickly until the mixture is uniform. Taste for sweetness, and if needed, add additional corn syrup in one tablespoon increments until desired level of sweetness is achieved.
Let cool in the refrigerator until the frosting is a spreadable consistency. This should not take more than 30 minutes. Should the frosting become too thick or stiff, just leave it out until it softens again.
Ms. Cobalt Blue is a beauty! did you come up with a name for her yet? LOVE IT! That cake looks just beautiful. I like TC"s blog name. Very fun. Go with it!
Love,Sarah
Posted by: Sarah R | September 17, 2009 at 10:57 PM