My second attempt at making Yellow Cake from the The New Best Recipes book ends in success! The small blemish on top occurred when the skin stuck to the plate before reversing on to the rack. Otherwise, the cakes are only slightly lopsided and rose to a healthy inch. The flavor is extremely eggy, and may not be the kind of cake that I ultimately want to proceed with in future, since I'm after a French or Asian cafe cake which is based on the chiffon. However, the Yellow Cake recipe is really not as complicated or delicate as others that I've come across and therefore is a reliable American style cake that serves a purpose at the end of a homey, hearty weekday meal.

Tinkered Yellow Cake Recipe

1 3/4 cup (7 oz) cake flour
1 1/2 cup (10.5 oz) sugar
16 tbsp (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but cool, cut into pieces
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9" cake pans. Grease and flour a parchment circle for the bottom of each. In a large mixing bowl, whisk dry ingredients together. Cut in butter with a fork till the meal is coarse with pea size bits.

Beat together the wet ingredients, egg, water, vanilla. I do this straight in my large 4 cup Pyrex measuring "jug". Pour 1 cup of the egg mixture into the flour and with a hand mixer beat on low for 5-10 seconds till incorporated. Turning the mixer to high, beat until light and fluffy. Add the remaining egg liquid in a slow stream for about 30 sec, then stop and scrape the sides of the bowl. Mix on high until thoroughly combined and the batter looks a little curdled, about 15 seconds.

Divide batter equally in the pans, spreading with a spatula till smooth. Bake till light gold and tooth pick comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the perimeter of the cake, and invert onto a large flat plate quickly. Peel off the parchment and immediately turn onto a wire rack. Cool before frosting.

Several points of note:
1. The cake pans really need to be well oiled and floured, especially in the corners, or else some loved bits get left behind.

2. Leveling the batter before baking is important to achieve a perfect layer.

3. My hand mixer is old and grumpy, so the mixing takes a bit longer than stated above. Furthermore, this cake is perfectly fine as made with a wire whisk but will likewise take a proportionally greater length of time and more elbow grease. The consistency is more crucial than the timing.

Since this is my everyday dessert, I didn't bother knife leveling the layers. Instead, I whipped up the Penuche from Betty Crocker's All Time Favorites and slathered brown butter frosting all over my peaked and lopsided cake. Again, I'm making use of my buttermilk powder in lieu of milk. The below recipe is slightly less frosting than needed for the cake above. One option is to substitute a light whipped cream filling in the center, or increase the Penuche recipe by about 1/4.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp buttermilk powder
2 cup powdered sugar

Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan. Heat to boiling and whisk in buttermilk powder and water until the mix looks like roux. When bubbly remove from heat and gradually stir in powdered sugar little by little, whisking till smooth and spreadable. The book says to put the hot pot in ice water while whisking, but I just did it off the heat. To compensate for the evaporated moisture I did have to add a little water once cooled and whisk again before applying to the cooled cake. While tasty, the frosting is not particularly light and fluffy. I would have to test the recipe again to be sure. For now, the cake is just right.