Yellow cake

What good is a frosting recipe without an amazing cake to go with it? Well, here's the perfect cake to compliment a rich buttercream frosting.

To make this cake, you'll need a mixer, 2 9" cake pans, parchment paper, and the following ingredients:

2.5 C + 2 Tbsp flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter at room temperature
2 C sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten and at room temperature
3 egg yolks at room temperature
1 C milk
2 tsp vanilla

Prepare cake pans by flouring, buttering, and lining with parchment paper. I normally use 2 9" pans for this recipe, though it says you can also use 3 8" pans. But of course, I don't have 8" pans. In fact, I really only have 1 9" pan. Good thing springform pans can be used to make cakes too :) Now for the good stuff!

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.

Beat butter on high until it's light yellow and sticks to the sides of the bowl. This should take about a minute.

Add the sugar in a steady stream, beating on high until mixture is light and fluffy. This should take about 3 minutes.

Reduce the speed to medium. Add the beaten eggs in small increments (about the volume of one egg at a time), allowing the egg to be incorporated between each addition. Now add the egg yolks one at a time, again allowing for it to be incorporated between additions. The mixture should have increased greatly in volume by the end of this step.

Since it's summer here and we don't have air conditioning, this is when I turned on the oven. It's important to minimize the time that there's something at 350F in my house. Did you catch that temperature? Preheat the oven to 350.

Now, find the dry ingredients that you set aside. Reduce speed to low. Add the dry ingredients in 4 additions, alternating with the milk, which should be added in 3 additions. So, that's flour + milk + flour + milk + flour + milk + flour. End with the flour.

Now, add the vanilla.

Pour in to the prepared pans and bake for ~35 minutes. They will be very dark on top, so don't be concerned if they're not "golden brown". The cake should spring back when lightly pressed in the center when they're done. Just be careful to not burn your hand. Steam comes out when you press it -- shocker, I know!

And you're done! Top with the buttercream frosting from here, and you're good to go! I like to melt some strawberry jam as a glaze between the layers.

Enjoy!