13 BEST MAJOR

In our major BAKING we have baked breads, cookies, muffins, pies and cakes. We have experience making icing and gum paste, but in bakibg I'm best in making a BUTTER CAKE. A butter cake is a cake in which one of the main ingredients is butter. Butter cakes consist of taking the most basic of ingredients butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and a leavening agent (baking powder or baking soda) and transforming them into a baked good. These cakes are considered one of the quintessential cakes in American baking. They find their origins in the English pound cake, which traditionally used equal parts of butter, flour, sugar, and eggs to produce a heavy, rich cake.

Butter cakes are traditionally made using a creaming method, in which the butter and sugar are first beaten until fluffy to incorporate air into the butter. Eggs are then added gradually, creating an emulsion, followed by alternating portions of wet and dry ingredients. Butter cakes are often considered to be unsurpassed in their richness and moistness when stored at room temperature, but they tend to stiffen, dry out, and lose flavor when refrigerated, making them unsuitable for filling or frosting in advance with ingredients that must be refrigerated, such as cream cheese frosting and pastry cream.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (1/2 lb.) butter, softened (see notes)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3 1/4 cups cake flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Preparation

1. In a bowl, with a mixer on medium-high speed (use the paddle attachment if using a standing mixer), beat butter and sugar until fluffy and pale yellow, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, then yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Beat in vanilla.

2. In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir (or beat at low speed) about a third of the flour mixture into butter mixture. Stir in half the milk just until blended. Stir in another third of the flour mixture, then remaining milk, followed by remaining flour. Scrape batter equally into two buttered and floured 9-inch round cake pans and spread level.

3. Bake in a 350° regular or convection oven until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool on racks in pans for 10 minutes, then invert cakes onto racks and remove pans. Cool completely before frosting.