Baking and decorating can sound intimidating for non bakers but a good recipe and tips that ease the entire process, can turn out to be a game changer!
Today I would like to share a simple vanilla sponge and a two ingredient buttercream frosting that can be played around in making variety of simple to complex cakes that are apt for every celebration of your loved ones.
Ingredients required for Vanilla sponge : yields : 1 kg sponge ( two layers )
- 4 no's : large eggs
- 250 g : Unsalted butter softened
- 350 g : All Purpose Flour
- 220 g : Castor sugar / Fine sugar
- 5 tsp : Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp : Salt
- 1.5 tbsp. : Vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup : Fresh milk
- To begin with, Grease the desired size of baking pans with soft butter and line them with parchment paper and set aside.
- Preheat the oven at 180 degree celcius.
- Sift the All Purpose Flour, salt and baking powder.
- To the bowl of a stand mixer add the softened butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla and sieved flour,baking powder, salt and milk.
- With the paddle attachment mix all the ingredients until it forms a no lump smooth batter.
- Pour the batter in to prepared baking pans and level the top..
- Place the pans in preheated oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes (for 9 inch cake pan ) at 180 degree celcius.
- Once baked to perfection remove and rest the pans for few minutes.
- Later invert the cakes on to cooling racks and cool them completely to room temperature.
Few pointers for perfect baking :
- The butter has to be soft to touch neither melted nor hard.
- The eggs used in baking need to be at room temperature.
- In case of using salted butter kindly skip the addition of salt mentioned.
- Sifting the flour, baking powder and salt isn't necessary.
- The cake batter will be thick so do not add extra milk in its preparation.
- The oven needs to be preheated for 10 minutes at the temperature mentioned to ensure the oven is heated to required temperature before we slide in the cake pans.
- The baking time depends on the size of cake pans used. the smaller the pan the thicker the cake and more the time of baking.
- I used 5 inch cake pans so baked for 30 minutes approx.
- Do the toothpick prick test after baking to make sure of its doneness.
- Cool the cakes in pans for few minutes before inverting on to cooling rack.
Ingredients required for Buttercream Frosting :
- 450 g : Softened Unsalted Butter
- 400 g / 1 can : Sweetened Condensed milk
- 1 tbsp : Flavoring of choice , here I used Strawberry
- Few drops of Gel Food Colouring , I used pink.
Method :
- To a stand mixer fitted with balloon whisk attachment, add the softened butter and whisk until smooth.
- To this smooth grit free butter, Gradually keep adding the condensed milk and continue whisking until everything gets incorporated.
- Add the flavouring and gel food colour. Whisk for couple more minutes.
- And tadaa, the silky smooth stable buttercream frosting is ready to dress your bakes.
Few Pointers :
- The butter used in making the buttercream has to be unsalted and must be soft to touch neither melted nor hard.
- The quantity of butter and condensed milk might sound a lot but the sweetness and texture are bang on ..so one can blindly follow.
- This can be flavoured to choice, for example : 1/2 cup of Canned caramel can be added to this for a caramel buttercream.
- This quantity of Buttercream is generous enough to frost 1 to 1.5 kg of a cake.
- For simple syrup : Add equal parts of sugar and water to a small pan and bring them to a gentle simmer until sugar melts. Cool the syrup completely and use this to soak your cakes.
Cake Assembly and Decoration :
- Place a cake layer over cake board or plate. Drizzle the top generously with simple syrup(check the pointers above).
- Add a good quantity of buttercream frosting and smooth out the top with an off set spatula.
- Place the second cake layer and adjust to the bottom layer of cake.
- Once they are set right, one over the other add a generous amount of frosting and spread it evenly over the top and sides of the cake layers.
- This is just a crumb coat so a thin even spread will do.
- Post the crumb coat chill the cake for an hour at least to set the frosting over the cake layer so that no cake crumbs fall out while doing the final touches.
- Now remove the chilled cake and spread enough frosting over the sides and top.
- Smooth out the frosting with a off set spatula and a cake scraper.
- Decorate the cake with chocolate ganache, wafer cones, sliced/fresh berries, leaves and flowers to prerefence.
How impressive does that look ?
Make this stunning cake for your loved ones and let it be the reason for their smile !
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