Yellow Birthday Cake with Swiss Meringue Frosting

Every year as it gets closer to Will's birthday I ask him what kind of cake he wants. And every year his answer is 'yellow cake'. Think of the boxed yellow cakes you saw as a kid, or had at someone's birthday party (where there would be a goodie bag. Why don't we do this as adults? One year as a kid someone was handing out tamagotchis. It BLEW my mind)

I had watched the Baking School videos from Bon Appetit when we first entered lockdown and loved the look of the classic yellow birthday cake with a chocolate ganache filling and sprinkles up the sides. Unfortunately the video doesn't give you the recipes, so here we are.

While trialling out different methods and recipes for the yellow cake I did briefly come to the conclusion that there is a reason why we have a box mix. Because the perfect yellow cake doesn't exist.

via GIPHY

I wanted to try a few different methods of mixing the cake, with traditional creaming (beating the butter and sugar until fluffy and then adding the remaining ingredients) and reverse creaming (combining the butter with the dry ingredients to create a coarse sand and then adding the wet ingredients) to see which one gave me a more tender crumb. Newsflash - it was neither! *sobs while surrounded by empty butter wrapper*

When I felt that all was failing I decided to check out the King Arthur Flour website. That morning I had gone there looking for a good buttermilk pancake recipe and it was literally (in a Chris Traeger voice) the best pancakes I have ever had. While perusing their yellow cake recipes I saw their version heated up the milk and added the butter into the saucepan, to melt the butter. I decided to give that a shot and huzzah, here is the most tender, moist yellow cake recipe I have yet to make!

Best of the Buttercreams

When I first started on this cake I hadn't realised how many types of frostings there were. I had always done the American buttercream, which is made by creaming butter and icing sugar. It is a really sweet option so sometimes it's better to use on cupcakes rather than a whole cake.

Swiss meringue buttercream (which is what I used here) uses a (wait for it) meringue base. Egg whites and sugar is heated above simmering water until it reaches a certain temperature, then whipped into soft peaks. Butter is then added as well as any other colours/flavourings you want.

Italian meringue buttercream is really similar to the Swiss version, except it uses an Italian meringue base. You're making a hot sugar syrup that you then add to the egg whites, then it is whipped into stiff peaks. Again, you add butter as well as any other flavours you want. I use this kind of buttercream when I want a marshmallowy frosting. It's also a good one if you want to take a torch to it to give a toasted effect!

Fillings!

When I made a layer cake I would always use the same frosting for the filling as I used on the outside. During the wonderful Baking School videos I realised that some of my favourite cakes that I've had in real life (as in, not me making them in the kitchen) have had a different filling. Having a different filling makes all the difference, it gives a surprise to the person cutting into the cake!

I used a simple chocolate ganache for this filling, using a dark chocolate to cut the sweetness of the Swiss meringue buttercream and sprinkles. Think about other fillings you could do though, a dark chocolate cake with a cream and cherry filling, a white cake with a caramel coconut filling, a milk chocolate cake with a peanut butter filling - the fillings just give you so much room for activities!

Baking Tips

• Make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature. If you forgot to take your eggs out of the fridge beforehand you can put them in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to bring them round to room temperature. When baking you want to make sure your ingredients are all at the same temperature.
• When putting your cake mix into your pans weigh them to make sure your layers are all even
• If your cakes come out domed, you can use a serrated knife to even up the top layer.
• Make sure your cakes are completely cool when you frost them. I tend to make layer cakes the night before the fillings and frostings, that way I know I won't have any runny frosting. I also always do a crumb coat!

Recipe