Ultimate Cook Book_ 900 New Recipes, Thousands of Ideas - Bruce Weinstein [346]
Spoon out about a quarter to a third of the frosting into the center of the layer. Use an offset spatula or the back of a stainless-steel soup spoon to spread the frosting out to the perimeter, making an even layer. Don’t be persnickety—some frosting can drip over the sides. Rather than loading the top with icing, put the thickest layer in the middle of a cake where it will be held in place by the next layer. If there’s a third layer to the cake, add it and repeat this step.
Add the upper layer, top side up. Fill in any gaps between the layers by grouting them with frosting. Again, don’t worry about a little mess—better at this point to have blobs of icing sticking out than to flatten them and track crumbs through the icing.
Spoon most of the remaining frosting into the center of the top of the cake. Spread the frosting evenly with an offset spatula or the back of a stainless-steel soup spoon, pushing most of the icing toward the perimeter.
Using a straight, thin spatula or a flatware knife, bring the excess frosting down over the sides of the cake, sweeping it over the upper edge and then smoothing it along the side to create an even rim. Be sure you have enough icing on the spatula so that crumbs aren’t picked up and dragged along. Smooth out the icing and remove the wax paper sheets.
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Buttery Vanilla Layer Cake with Banana Frosting
This is the simplest layer cake, best for birthdays. Makes an 8-inch two-layer cake
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) cool unsalted butter, cut into chunks, plus additional for greasing the pans
2 cups cake flour, plus additional for dusting the pans
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Banana Frosting (recipe follows)
Position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly butter two 8-inch round cake pans; dust them with flour, shaking out the excess but making sure the pans are well coated.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy and light, about 4 minutes. If you rub a small bit of the mixture between your fingers, you should feel almost no sugar granules.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding another only after the former has been incorporated. Beat in the vanilla until smooth.
Turn off the beaters, add the flour mixture, and beat at low speed only a few turns, just until the flour is moistened and evenly distributed throughout the batter.
Remove the beaters and turn the batter a few times with a rubber spatula to make sure all the flour has been incorporated off the bowl’s bottom. Pour and scrape evenly into the prepared pans; rap them against the counter to knock out any air pockets.
Bake until lightly browned and a little puffed, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool completely before icing with Banana Frosting.
To cool and unmold: Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes, then unmold the cakes by running a knife around the inner edge of the layers, inverting them onto a cutting board, removing the pans, and reinverting them onto the wire rack.
To store: Do not ice. Wrap the cooled layers in plastic and set aside at room temperature for up to 2 days.
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The Butter’s Temperature
The biggest baking myth? That the butter should be at room temperature. While soft butter is easy to work with, it cannot create the necessary structure for good cakes and cookies; the fat is too liquid to trap air molecules. In truth, the butter must be below 68°F to create a good batter.
Here’s what we recommend: take the butter out of the fridge and cut it into chunks as you prep the ingredients. By the time