Hi, I’m Sarah Mitchell and today at “AJ Zorvella Bakes,” we’re making a fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth white cake. So let’s get started. First off, set the oven to 350, so it’s nice and hot. And now in a large bowl, we’re gonna combine the dry ingredients, starting off with three cups or 360 grams of all-purpose flour. One of the most important things you can do in this recipe is not to add too much flour. So grab a scale, or if you’re using a measuring cup, sprinkle the flour in with a spoon and then level it off.
Don’t scoop it up. To fluff things up, two teaspoons of baking powder. If you’ve only had boxed mix white cake. This has a lovely flavor and the texture is so good. It’s like a perfectly sweet cloud that floats into your mouth. For a bit of contrast, we’re adding three quarters of a teaspoon of salt. Grab a whisk and we’re gonna mix this up just to distribute all of those leavening agents and salt.
Okay, set that aside and now it’s time for the wet. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or a big bowl if you’re using a hand mixer, we’re gonna add one cup of room temperature butter, that’s 227 grams. And by the way, room temperature means your butter should yield to the touch when pressed lightly, it’s not gonna crack and it generally feels soft. If your butter’s too hard, it’ll be lumpy and very annoying. Plop those in and we’re gonna cream this for about 30 seconds until it’s nice and creamy. 30 seconds on medium should be just fine.
To sweeten and soften things up, I’m adding two cups of 400 grams of granulated sugar, and you’re gonna beat this on medium speed for about three minutes or so until it’s light and fluffy. And I would scrape the bowl down once halfway through. Scraping the bowl down just gives you a nice homogeneous mixture. The way stand mixers work, they tend to compact a thin layer on the bowl.
That’s really gonna be dense and probably not have that much sugar mixed in. While that finishes mixing, I’m gonna separate five eggs out. We’re only going to use the whites for this recipe. It doesn’t matter if you get a little yolk in your whites; we’re only separating them because it’s a white cake, not a yellow cake. And we want that color to be maintained. The egg whites are gonna give the cake structure, and that’s basically it. You could use these yolks to make so many delicious things.
If it were me, I would make a batch of my French buttercream. It would be so good, but you could also make a flan really easily as well. With the mixer still running on medium speed, I’m gonna add the egg whites one at a time. Let the mixture really incorporate before adding the next. And you should scrape the bowl down maybe two times during this process. I see some soupy nonsense. You see just butter and sugar.
So we want to scrape the bowl down and let everything really well together. Continue mixing. This cake, by the way, became popular in the 1950s. And it’s interesting how many cakes that we love became popular in the 1950s. I think German chocolate cake as well, maybe a bit later. Hummingbird cake was the 60s. What was that time? So you never see a bottle of vanilla and a measuring spoon in my hand, but today, there will be, because we wanna have a light colored cake. And this, as you can see, is quite dark.
You have a few options here. One, just accept that your cake will be a little bit darker, but so delicious. Two, you could use imitation vanilla extract, but I don’t like to do that. But it’s clear. And three is you could use another flavoring that’s clear. So one and two teaspoons of vanilla. In addition or instead, you could use half a teaspoon of almond extract. I’m gonna be adding this in. Gives you a lovely flavor and it’s very powerful. I think if you were just using almond extract,
I would use three-quarters of a teaspoon. Other clear extracts that are less popular are orange blossom water and rose water. Both are lovely, but they’re very specific flavors. Mix this in really well. The color hardly changed. Totally worth it. Scrape down one last time. Well, one last time kind of. Right now I’m gonna add a third of the flour mixture in, sprinkle, sprinkle, just a little bit first. With the mixer on the lowest speed, add that in. I’ll be alternating the dry mixture
with one cup of whole milk that is room temperature. So you’ll probably wanna microwave this just until it’s, like, tepid or room temp, not ice cold. Add that half cup in. You measured your flour up properly; everything else was fine, but if you mix this too much, the cake will totally change. You’ll take it out of the oven, it’ll look beautiful and smell amazing,
but as it cools, it’ll contract down and become gummy and sad and even taste, it’ll taste different on your tongue. So do not overmix, mix it until it is almost combined and finish it by hand. Adding in the next third of flour with the remaining milk. This is some, one half of a cup of milk twice, and the last third of the flour. So our batter is almost mixed. There’s definitely a lot of streaks of flour left, but my mixer is done. I’ll be finishing this off by hand, because part of the joy of a white cake is having the perfect fluffy melt in your mouth texture.
Once your batter’s done, grab two eight inch cake pans. If possible, try and use a light colored pan. If you use a dark pan and if you use baking spray instead of butter, that can really darken your cake. It’s gonna be covered by frosting, so it doesn’t really matter either way, but I don’t know. These are the things I think about. And for insurance, I’m adding a parchment paper round right in the middle.
This will give you an easy release. If you’re using butter and not baking spray, grab a tablespoon of flour, just kick it around in your pan so it coats everything lightly. Discard the rest and repeat. Now we’re gonna divide our batter equally. This batter smells so good, oh my gosh. Grab an offset spatula and smooth the batter out to the edge of each pan so they have a nice even bake. My cake layers are ready to go into the oven, 350 for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the centers spring back when gently pressed.
In the meantime, we’re gonna make a delicious frosting for them. In you go. Our cake’s getting a simple but delicious vanilla buttercream. Grab three sticks or one and a half cups of unsalted butter. Add your butter in and we’re gonna cream it up. I’m also adding half a teaspoon of salt. If you’re using salted butter, just skip the added salt. We’re gonna beat this on medium for about two minutes until it’s very soft and we pumped some air into it.
American buttercream has a bad reputation for being, like, gritty, hard, super sweet, and it is the sweetest buttercream compared to Italian or Swiss. However, if you make it properly, it’s actually light, silky, creamy, and amazing, and it does not have to be super sweet. Scrape your bowl down. Already, this butter is so creamy and soft. To our butter, we’re gonna add about five cups of powdered sugar. You do not have to add all five cups. You could, let’s say add four cups and then taste as you go
and see if you want it to be a bit sweeter or if you’re fine where it is. Mix on low. Otherwise, you’re gonna get a giant cloud of powdered sugar. Wait for the first cup to mix in, add the second one and just continue. For some flavor and to slacken things up, I’m adding two teaspoons of vanilla and the last cup of powdered sugar. And right now the buttercream is too thick. We need to add some liquid in. You could use milk, half and half, or cream, whichever you’d like or have on hand.
And you’ll be using somewhere around two to three tablespoons. It could be a little bit more or a little bit less depending on the consistency that you want for the buttercream. I’m just gonna scrape my bowl down once and then mix it on medium low for two to three minutes or until it’s nice and creamy and combined. I think altogether, I’m adding three tablespoons of cream. But if you want a more slack mixture, just go ahead and add an extra tablespoon at a time while mixing. My buttercream looks great,
so let’s assemble our cake and make it look beautiful. My cake layers are completely cooled and now we’re gonna add one cup of frosting right on top of the first layer, smooth it out into an even layer with an offset spatula. I reserved about half a cup of frosting for some decorations. The rest is gonna go right on top of the cake. And this is an American buttercream, so when you make a white uncolored one, it’s gonna be this cream color.
If you want it to be whiter, you really have to add a little bit, like a tiny, tiny little bit of violet or blue, and that will give it a more white appearance. I don’t mind the natural color of butter. If you wanted it to be pure white without having any food coloring, just make a Swiss or Italian meringue buttercream. And it’s much lighter in color, because it’s based in a meringue made of egg whites. Spread it out into a nice smooth layer, and now work it down the side. Just do it bit by bit. Don’t try and do it all at once.
Once your cake’s smooth, finish it off with some dollops or a ripple, whatever you’d like. I’m using a large closed star tip. Finish it off with a sprinkle of sprinkles. So cheerful. If you want, you can add a little skirt on the side as well. Give your cake a slice and it’s ready to enjoy! It’s like a sweet, fluffy vanilla cloud floating right into your mouth. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe. Thank You!
