Our Best-Ever Vanilla Cake Is The Most Impressive Centerpiece
We elevate the classic vanilla cake in our easy, best-ever recipe by adding in vanilla bean specks.
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00:00 Hey, it's Frankie from Delish.
00:01 I'm going to make vanilla cake.
00:04 You know, yellow cake, white cake,
00:06 but what about that one in between
00:08 with the little specks of vanilla bean in it?
00:10 It's classic.
00:11 It's become one of my favorites because I have to fess up.
00:14 This is actually the first cake recipe that I've developed.
00:17 And I have to say, I got it right on the first try,
00:20 which means maybe I'm a cake pro now.
00:22 I love vanilla cake,
00:23 and I'm going to show you how easy this is to make.
00:26 And you're gonna put it in your back pocket
00:27 for every party and event that needs a cake.
00:31 There are three types of leavening that go on in this cake.
00:34 Mechanical is one of them.
00:35 Mechanical is when you add the butter or the fat,
00:38 which in this case will be the butter and the oil,
00:40 and sugar, and you whip it
00:42 until it gets light and airy and fluffy.
00:44 There is air being whipped into that fat.
00:46 Organic is another type of leavening.
00:48 The eggs have a lot of moisture in them,
00:50 so when they bake, when they're under high heat,
00:53 they release moisture,
00:54 and that moisture contributes to rise.
00:57 And finally, you have chemical leavening,
01:00 like baking soda or baking powder.
01:02 Baking powder is in this recipe,
01:04 and that will also aid in rise of the cake.
01:07 It's really important that your fat, and liquids, and eggs
01:10 are at room temperature when making cake.
01:12 And the reason is, if the fat is too cold,
01:16 then once the eggs are added in,
01:18 it's going to clump back up into little curds of butter.
01:21 Same thing if the milk, or the half and half,
01:24 or the cream that you're using is too cold.
01:26 It's also gonna cause the batter to break, or split.
01:29 And it's not going to create an even, tender crumb
01:32 that you're looking for.
01:33 So a couple of tricks.
01:34 With butter, you could keep the sticks out overnight,
01:37 or if you're in a pinch, and you need it,
01:39 you could cut it into smaller pieces,
01:41 and leave it out for about an hour or two,
01:43 or pop it in the microwave,
01:44 so that it's not soft, where it's like melting in your hand,
01:47 but there's a little bit of indentation that happens
01:50 when you put your finger on the butter.
01:51 That's room temperature butter.
01:53 With eggs, again, if you're in a pinch,
01:55 and you need those eggs to make a cake right away,
01:58 dunk them in hot water for a couple of minutes,
02:00 and they will become room temperature eggs.
02:04 With your dairy, same thing.
02:05 Leave it out at room temperature for a couple hours,
02:07 if you have time, or heat it on the stove
02:10 to about 70 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit,
02:12 just until it's like lukewarm, and that's it.
02:15 And then all of your ingredients will be room temperature.
02:19 No splitting will happen.
02:20 The party will go on.
02:22 The cake will be great.
02:23 Instead of just using vanilla extract,
02:24 I opted to use vanilla bean paste,
02:26 because you want to see those pretty little
02:29 vanilla bean specks all throughout your cake.
02:31 But also, vanilla bean paste is a little cheaper
02:34 than buying like a vanilla bean pod.
02:37 It's vanilla extract and vanilla bean combined into a paste.
02:39 I opted to use cake flour over all-purpose flour,
02:41 because cake flour has a little less protein in it,
02:44 which will result in a finer crumb.
02:46 Our first step to making a great vanilla cake
02:49 is to cream the butter and sugar.
02:51 We'll let that go for a couple minutes
02:52 until we add the vegetable oil.
02:54 The key here is to make sure it becomes light yellow,
02:58 creamy, it doubles in size.
03:00 That's how you know there's a lot of air whipped into it,
03:02 and that's gonna help the leavening action
03:04 once it's in the oven.
03:05 Our butter and sugar have whipped
03:09 into this beautiful light yellow color,
03:12 and they got some fluffiness happening in there and air.
03:15 I'm going to add in the vegetable oil,
03:18 and then I'll show you a trick.
03:21 You'll notice that the attachment is detached
03:23 from the machine because when you have a mixer,
03:26 you usually hook up your paddle,
03:27 and then you twist it so it locks into place.
03:30 But if you want to get that bottom of the bowl,
03:32 if you want to scrape up the ingredients
03:34 on the bottom of the bowl, you don't lock it into place.
03:37 You hold it right where the clasp is.
03:40 You bring it down, let it lock.
03:43 You turn it on, and it's going to scrape up
03:45 the bottom of the bowl for you
03:46 so that you don't have to get in there with your hand
03:48 or get in there with a spatula
03:50 or get in there with the paddle
03:51 after you mix everything together.
03:53 It does it for you.
03:55 That's what they're supposed to do.
03:56 I'm going to mix this for another five minutes,
03:58 and then we'll move on to the next thing.
04:01 I'm going to crack the eggs,
04:03 and I'm going to crack them right into
04:04 a liquid measuring cup so that it's easier for me
04:07 to pour them in one at a time
04:09 when I'm mixing the butter and the oil,
04:12 the sugar and the eggs together in the mixer.
04:14 We're going to lower the speed
04:15 and add the eggs in one at a time,
04:17 just until incorporated.
04:18 If there are any egg shells inside this mixture,
04:21 they will settle at the bottom,
04:22 and you'll catch them at the end.
04:23 So don't worry, they won't end up in your batter.
04:25 I'm going to mix the cake flour
04:26 and the baking powder together,
04:28 mix it with a whisk for about one minute
04:29 so that it sifts instead of using an actual hand sifter.
04:33 It just takes one thing out of the process.
04:35 And while we're doing this,
04:37 it's also mechanically leavening the cake flour,
04:40 which will help aid in a more leavening action
04:43 while this cake is in the oven.
04:45 I'm going to add half of the dry ingredients
04:46 into the wet mixture on very low speed.
04:49 We do not want to overmix this.
04:51 We don't want to create any gluten.
04:52 And then I'm going to add half of the half and half
04:55 with the vanilla bean paste and the salt.
04:58 And just as that begins to incorporate,
04:59 we'll add the rest of the dry ingredients,
05:01 the rest of the half and half,
05:03 and we'll continue to mix it for a couple seconds.
05:05 And there should be lumps left.
05:07 Think of it like a pancake batter.
05:08 When you make pancake batter or waffle batter,
05:10 there are still lumps in the batter,
05:12 so you do not want to overmix it.
05:14 Before we divide our batter between the pans,
05:15 I'm going to butter them using some leftover butter
05:18 that I had before for the cake.
05:21 And then I'm going to show you a trick with parchment paper
05:23 and how you can create that perfect circle
05:25 for the bottom of the pan so that your cake does not stick.
05:28 It's a great hack to make the perfect paper line around
05:32 for your cake.
05:33 You fold this over.
05:34 Fold it in half one way, fold it in half the other way.
05:41 Like you're creating a little book for yourself.
05:44 And then you're going to go from point to the one side.
05:49 And then you're going to keep that point steady there.
05:54 Fold until you get that perfect, tight little cone,
06:00 flat cone.
06:01 We're going to use scissors
06:02 and we're going to cut most of it off.
06:05 You could kind of measure inside,
06:08 like how much you're going to need from the center out.
06:17 It looks like homemade snowflakes.
06:19 There's some vanilla bean in there.
06:24 There's still some lumps.
06:25 And you can also tell that there's a lot of aeration
06:28 in here just by mixing it.
06:29 I could kind of feel and hear
06:31 like some of the little bubbles popping
06:33 and it just looks like there's air pumped into it.
06:36 So now we're going to, with our eye, divide each in half.
06:40 Before I get these in the oven,
06:41 I take each of the cake pans and I twist it
06:43 so that the batter centrifuges into the center
06:46 and it kind of leavens it out.
06:49 Also gently tapping will release any air bubbles,
06:52 just like that.
06:54 I'll get into the oven at 350 degrees
06:56 for about 30 to 40 minutes.
06:58 You'll know when it's done
06:59 when it's a little golden brown on top,
07:01 a cake tester inserted in the center pulls out clean
07:04 or has very, very few crumbs on it.
07:07 Or you could even use your finger and check the top.
07:10 If it springs back, you know it's ready.
07:12 Our layers have cooled.
07:14 I have buttercream here that has a little bit more
07:16 of that vanilla bean paste in it
07:17 so that we know it's vanilla cake.
07:19 If you have time, you could do a crumb coat,
07:21 which means that you would do a thin layer of icing
07:23 on the outside of the cake.
07:25 It would catch the crumbs.
07:26 You would put it in the fridge and let it chill.
07:29 You'd take it out and do that final layer of icing.
07:31 But we're going to do it all at one time today
07:33 and it's going to be fine.
07:34 You just have to take your time
07:35 so that the crumbs don't get caught.
07:37 I'm going to add some of the buttercream on top.
07:39 You could gauge with your eye,
07:41 usually about like a quarter to a third of the mixture.
07:44 I loaded on some of my icing
07:46 and I'm taking a large spatula,
07:47 going from the center and I'm pushing out
07:50 so that it goes right to the edge.
07:52 And once you put on that top layer,
07:54 it's going to condense the layers together
07:56 and it's going to push out more of the icing,
07:57 which will be good so that you could grab onto it
07:59 as you start to coat the outside of the cake.
08:02 Take your spatula and go around in a circle like that
08:05 until you hit the center.
08:07 (upbeat music)
08:09 Now that we have our top layer on,
08:15 you could see some of that icing was pushed out the sides,
08:18 which is great 'cause we'll get to grab onto it
08:20 as we're icing the edges.
08:21 And again, I'm just going to start pushing it out
08:24 to the sides because unlike the center
08:26 where you want a really thick layer
08:27 'cause it's the center of the cake
08:28 and you want a thick layer of icing in the center,
08:32 we want a thinner layer on top.
08:34 So we're going to start pushing most of it out to the edges.
08:38 We're going to start kind of in the center
08:40 and work our way out in a kind of a square fashion.
08:43 You could start pushing it down the sides now.
08:45 (upbeat music)
08:48 Just before we start piping, I want to take my spatula,
08:53 my offset spatula, and I want to go around the cake
08:56 because as I was piping around the cake,
08:58 I formed this wall that built up around the top of the cake
09:02 and I just want to flatten it out.
09:04 By pulling it in, you go from the outside
09:07 and pull towards the center and you keep moving around.
09:11 Outside, pull towards the center,
09:12 out, pull towards the center.
09:14 Try making the top as smooth as possible.
09:16 I mean, it is going to be covered by the florets
09:18 for the most part anyway,
09:19 so it doesn't have to be super perfect, but that's it.
09:23 There are some crumbs that you could see
09:24 throughout the cake, that's fine.
09:26 It's a homemade vanilla cake.
09:28 It's going to taste just as good anyway.
09:30 We filled our piping bag three quarters of the way
09:32 with buttercream.
09:33 We have an eight pronged piping tip.
09:35 You could usually go by the number,
09:37 but I can't remember what the number is.
09:40 I'm going to show you how to pipe right onto the cake
09:43 using pressure in your hand
09:45 and guiding with your non-dominant hand.
09:48 I'm going to create a little base
09:50 and then I'm going to work it around like that
09:53 to create a little floret.
09:55 I'm going to pipe five florets into the cake
09:57 and then it'll be ready to slice into.
09:59 This is nothing like a box cake mix.
10:01 Don't get me wrong, those are great in a pinch,
10:04 but vanilla cake has become one of my favorite recipes.
10:07 I also think you have to eat this cake at room temperature
10:10 for optimal flavor, for optimal texture.
10:13 Everybody's going to be asking you for your recipe.
10:17 This is exactly what I envisioned a vanilla cake
10:23 to be like when I developed this recipe.
10:25 For more great recipes like this one,
10:28 stick around here at delish.com.
10:30 (upbeat music)
10:32 (upbeat music)