What is your favorite cake recipe?

My baby is turning one and she's getting all her sister's old toys as gifts; I figure the least I could do is make her first cake from scratch. Except I've never made a cake from scratch before (we are a boxed cake mix family for better or worse).

I'd love to see some reliable, tried and true cake recipes! And frosting too?? Probably nothing too rich...

Thanks!

http://clickamericana.com/topics/food-drink/3-vintage-classic-chocolate-cake-recipes-from-hersheys

I make the third one, minus the peppermint. It is basic and delicious! The one with boiling water seems popular but I have never made it, mostly because the one I use is so perfect. Happy birthday baby!

I use box cake mix, but use my mom's frosting recipe that's like a royal buttercream. It's phenoemnal and stiffens up, making it great for decorating. I'll find the recipe and post shortly! I'm definitely no cake artist (as you can see) but managed to do this with that frosting and a little fondant. The inside was rainbow layers and is very easy to achieve with a little food coloring.

A while back @project37 posted a discussion about Mrs 37's cooking blog. It's a wonderful mix of recipes and writing. Here is the link http://tastyoasis.net Type "chocolate cake" into the search bar to pull up the recipe. Don't be afraid that about the amount of coffee in the recipe, it actually intensifies the chocolate flavor!

I made cupcakes with that recipe from tastyoasis with my 6-year old. They were incredibly easy and tasted fantastic.

I don't know how Texas Sheet Cake came to be our family's go-to dessert for summer picnics, but it is, and it's delicious.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/the_best_chocol/

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Snow-White-Buttercream-Icing This is it! My mom's recipe is way old and this version is reformulated. Only difference is this new version uses corn syrup. I definitely do not use corn syrup - yuck!

I love this one https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=5044. Though I make it with chocolate frosting. Won me a girl scout baking contest years ago!

My Grandma Scully's chocolate cake. The woman had her flaws, but cooking/baking was NOT one of them.

This is her recipes, exactly as written, I will add my personal notes after:

3 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cocoa
1 1/3 cup oil
2 cup buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 1/2 cup sugar

Together - flour, soda, salt and cocoa.
Add the oil, buttermilk, vanilla; beat until very smooth.

In seperate bowl beat eggs until thick and frothy. Add sugar until blended. Fold this mixture into batter thoroughly.

350 - 30 to 40 min,
325 cupcakes 3/4 hour

I've made this many times and it is universally loved. I use a stand mixture for this. You could probably do it by hand but whipping the eggs will give you a workout for sure. For those new to cooking who want to give this a try, soda means baking soda. Cocoa is cocoa powder. She didn't specify dutch or natural, I've used natural (Hershey's) with no issues. Instead of buying buttermilk and not using it all I add lemon juice to milk to make fake buttermilk, you don't taste the lemon. I've heard most people use a teaspoon or so, but I actually use about an ounce, for some reason mine doesn't turn right.

The 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes is for two 9 inch cake pans. And something I have recently learned is that if you don't want to depend on a toothpick to see if the cake is done you can use an instant read thermometer, most cakes are done when the center is 205 degrees.

Finally, I was grossed out when I first saw that much vegetable oil in the recipe, but I tried it anyway. Guess what, it works. And it turns out Alton Brown puts almost as much in his Devil's Food Cake recipe, so my grandma wasn't some weirdo after all, though her recipe is older than Mr. Brown himself.

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For icing I am not a fan of plain buttercream. It is the easiest icing to make with only butter and confectioners sugar, and looks beautiful when pipes, but it is too sweet for my tastes. There are icings with a tablespoon or so of flour thrown into some cooked milk which works wonders. For some of those google "flour based icing." But my newest favorite is Swiss Buttercream

This one is Woodland Bakery's Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I use the egg whites that come in a carton because they are pasteurized, I didn't have an issue with them whipping, but a stand mixer is a must. The recipe can be a bit intimidating when read, but she also includes a video which makes the whole thing a lot less intimidating. This is NOT a crusting frosting so you can't decorate the cake as prettily as you can with regular buttercream, but in my book taste trumps looks and this one is worth it.

http://www.woodlandbakeryblog.com/drum-roll-buttercream-is-here-tada/

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One final word, no matter which recipe you choose make sure you try a test cake or two before baking the birthday cake. You don't want the birthday cake to be your very first attempt at making a cake from scratch.

LOVE the Magnolia Bakery buttercream frosting recipe (http://www.marthastewart.com/255817/magnolia-bakery-vanilla-buttercream). Am much less picky about my cake than my frosting.

What about yellow or white cake? Does anyone have a good recipe for one of those?

I haven't tried any, but Google Alton Brown to see if he has any. None of his recipes have let me down yet.

smithfield5 said:

A while back @project37 posted a discussion about Mrs 37's cooking blog. It's a wonderful mix of recipes and writing. Here is the link http://tastyoasis.net Type "chocolate cake" into the search bar to pull up the recipe. Don't be afraid that about the amount of coffee in the recipe, it actually intensifies the chocolate flavor!

I was just coming here to post this very recipe. It has been my go-to cake recipe for a while now. It's easy easy easy.

Well. We are going to be very fat in this house soon because I am going to try all of these.

Holy crap.

Thanks so much, everyone!!

spontaneous said:

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For icing I am not a fan of plain buttercream. It is the easiest icing to make with only butter and confectioners sugar, and looks beautiful when pipes, but it is too sweet for my tastes. There are icings with a tablespoon or so of flour thrown into some cooked milk which works wonders. For some of those google "flour based icing." But my newest favorite is Swiss Buttercream

Mrs Project37 has an excellent milk/flour frosting recipe on her blog, as well. I don't always use the almond extract, and but it's just fine either way

http://tastyoasis.net/2014/02/22/cooked-vanilla-and-chocolate-almond-frostings/

Thanks so much, smithfield5, jmo, and pippi! I'm so thrilled you like the cake and frosting! I have another recipe up for Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Frosting that is a pretty big hit in my house too.

http://tastyoasis.net/2015/02/17/snickerdoodle-cupcakes-with-brown-sugar-cinnamon-frosting/

jmo, for yellow cake, my go to is from Smitten Kitchen, a blog that has never let me down with incredible recipes. I've made this one a couple of times, and everyone loved it.

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

Thanks again for the Tasty Oasis shout-out!

Thank you everyone!! Just thought I'd update with the fact that i ended up using none of these delicious recipes. Hah! I was at Trader Joes and liked the look of their vanilla cake mix (after you add butter, milk, and eggs the ingredients are sugar, flour, baking soda/powder, oil, salt, and vanilla which is basically like making a cake from scratch?) so I got that and ended up making a strawberry whipped cream for the frosting. It was kind of like strawberry shortcake, and my kid loved it! Very light and sweet but not too sweet.

I'll definitely give one of those chocolate cakes above a try when she's ready for more flavor. My bigger kid told me today she wants chocolate cake for HER birthday so I'll try one of those for the chocoholic.

Thanks again, all!!

I hadn't seen this thread before - I was just about to offer up the family recipe for carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. The best cake I've ever tasted, the recipe handed down from my mother-in-law to me. Just made one last week for my husband's birthday. Kids might like it if they like carrot muffins - even my grandson did. Looks like you solved your dilemma though with this tasty cake. Enjoy!

You know, the reason I decided to forego chocolate cake was because we tried my mothers delicious carrot cake with the baby on Easter! Cream cheese frosting and everything. I was sure she'd love it but she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. So I thought I'd try something a little lighter and it worked out, thankfully!

But If you have the best carrot cake recipe ever I would definitely be interested in seeing the recipe

Me too!

I will be happy to share it. I'm not home right now but I will be later & I can do it then. I have to warn you that it is NOT low calorie though in any way, shape or form!!

For anyone else still looking for a basic birthday cake - when my daughter was much younger we had her party at King's Cooking Studio and they made birthday cake. The recipe is still the one we use - it's easy and delicious.

2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup milk
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl combine dry ingredients until well blended. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add vanilla. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Alternately add dry ingredients and milk to butter/sugar mixture. Divide batter in half. Add 2 ozs unsweetened chocolate to one half and leave the other half vanilla (we normally skip the chocolate and just leave vanilla). Layer batter in cake pan. Bake 20 minutes. Coll completely on a rack before frosting.

@afa your baby's cake is adorable and seems perfect for a first birthday! strawberry whipped cream? please elaborate...
I just went downstairs mid-typing to shear off a bit of the carrot cake (9x13) I made Easter morning...still moist and delicious...as is the (counter intuitive) point with so many baked goods, at its best the next day...I actually googled "healthified carrot cake" to select and refine a recipe--not just to be "healthier" but I really don't like overly sweet desserts and in the past I've tasted carrot cakes that you almost felt like wringing out...we were very happy with how my version came out...
Probably our favorite cake is the "Fresh Apple Cake" from Fanny Farmer Baking Book (I up the amount of fruit and spice and slightly reduce fat and sugar, also substitute WW Pastry flour for half of the AP flour)--that's what my daughter expects to wake up to for her breakfast birthday cake for years now--there's no frosting, just some 10x sifted over (Official birthday cake now comes from Natales although we baked the first one...)

This was the recipe I used for the strawberry whipped cream--I know how to do whipped cream, but I wasn't sure about proportions to make it strawberry. Really basic and good (and look at all the variations!!):

http://www.joyofbaking.com/WhippedCreamFrosting.html

I'm loving all these recipes. I have to say, I'm more of a vanilla/fruity cake kind of a person so the apple cake and kings cake are looking extra good to me right now. I might need to google the Fanny Farmer apple cake recipe!

Here is the carrot cake recipe I've been making for 30+ years. It is very moist & the cream cheese frosting isn't super sweet like most cream cheese frostings. It's a family favorite with my husband & grown kids.

Cake:
1 1/2 cups salad oil
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups grated carrots, peeled first (about 6 medium carrots)

Frosting:
1/4 lb butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease & flour 3 8-inch cake pans (or you can use 2 9-inch cake pans).
In large bowl, use electric mixer to mix together oil, sugar & eggs. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt & cinnamon. Add flour mix to sugar mixture; beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Add vanilla & carrots, blend well by hand. Divide evenly among pans. Bake 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean. Turn out onto wire racks to cool. When fully cooled, frost with icing & refrigerate cake until time to eat.

Frosting:
Let butter & cream cheese soften at room temperature, then beat together with electric mixture until smooth. Add vanilla & salt; add confectioner's sugar to taste (I probably add less than a cup, but I don't measure it). Beat until well blended. Frost when cake is completely cool.