1-2-3-4 cake has revolutionized my life. It's cake, made with practically no recipe. Well really, just a recipe so simple that it's memorable, and so basic that it can be dressed up in any way.
Even in a Devil's Food way.
Ingredients:
1 C softened butter and 1 C milk
2 C sugar
3 C self-rising flour
4 large eggs
Add-ins:
Vanilla cake-
1 tsp vanilla
Chocolate cake-
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 C sour cream
My plans for a Lemon Cake-
1 tsp vanilla
3 zest of 3 large lemons
1/2 C whole-milk ricotta
Method:
*Have all of your ingredients room temperature prior to mixing.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking pans (three 8-inch or two 9-inch pans) by greasing with butter and dusting with flour.
Cream butter until smooth. Add sugar, continuing to cream until very light and fluffy, about 6-8 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.
Beat in milk and flour, alternating between the two, starting and ending with flour.
Add vanilla and beat until just mixed.
Divide evenly between the pans, then get rid of the excess bubbles in the batter by dropping the pans onto the counter a few times. This helps the cakes rise evenly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes (three 8-inch) or up to 50 minutes (two 9-inch), testing for doneness 10 minutes before the end of cooking time, because nothing is worse than an over-baked cake, right?
When making recipe additions for different flavors, just go with the flow: mix in the dry ingredients together (cocoa powder+flour, or zest+flour), and the dairy (sour cream, ricotta, etc.) and flavors (extract, lemon juice, and so on) mix in briefly at the end.
And now for the frosting trick! It keeps frosting from getting onto the cake platter, and it's pretty much a no-mess, no-brainer!
Just take several strips of wax paper and stuff them about 1/2- to 1-inch under the cake, like so:
Then frost, as messy as you please:
Remove, and voila! Enjoy the tasty beauty!
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