I originally made this cake after trying a yellow cake recipe from Magnolia Bakery. I was happy with the Magnolia cake, but bakers on various food forums had recommended a few others inluding this one — Carole Walter’s Best Yellow Cake. I tried the Carol Walter recipe yesterday to compare it to Magnolia’s.
The Carol Walter cake is similar to Magnolia’s cake, but calls for cake flour, baking powder and salt rather than Magnolia’s combo of self-rising and all purpose flour. It uses a different a good amount of vanilla and calls for superfine sugar instead of regular.
Variations on 1-2-3-4 Cake
I should have noticed this right away and if I baked cakes more often I would have, but both cakes were just variations on the old 1-2-3-4 cake made with 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups sifted cake flour, 4 eggs, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 cup of milk. It’s a basic template for yellow cake which bakers like to adjust.
As for this 1-2-3-4 cake variation, I liked it and Todd preferred it over Magnolia’s. Of the two, I liked Magnolia’s a little better because it had a cleaner flavor (no baking powder taste) and didn’t crumble as much when I put a fork in it. So the self-rising/all purpose combo was my favorite, but if I had cake flour on hand I’d happily bake and serve this one.
But I’m not stopping with these two! Yesterday I found a recipe by Paula Deen which is almost the same as these, but calls for 3 cups self-rising flour. I’m off to bake it right now.
One final note before I head to the kitchen. Rather than halve the recipe and make two 8 inch layers as I did with the Magnolia cake, I halved the cake and baked it in 1 9-inch pan so it would be taller and the ratio of cake to frosting would be higher. That worked out well, so for the rest of the yellow cake experiments, I’ll be halving recipes that call for 3 9 inch layers and using 1 9 inch round pan.
Here’s the recipe which is paraphrased. For more really good cake recipes, buy Carole’s book!
Best Yellow Cake (inspired by Carol Walter)
3 cups sifted cake flour (measured after sifting, important)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups superfine sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
Preheat to 350 F. Spray 2 or 3 9-inch round pans with flour-added cooking spray. Line pan bottoms with a round of parchment paper if you have some.
Sift together the (already sifted) cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Beat the butter in a stand mixer until creamy. Add the sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, taking about 8 to 10 minutes to blend it in well. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally.
Add the eggs, 1 at a time at 1-minute intervals. Scrape the sides of the bowl as necessary. Blend in the vanilla.
Reduce mixer speed to medium-low. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour. Mix just until incorporated after each addition.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes if you’ve used 3 pans, or 30-35 minutes if you’ve used 2 pans. Cake should be golden brown on top and come away from the sides of the pan. Cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes, then turn from pan and let finish cooling on a rack.
Anna
Hi Emi,
Were you cake pans black? If you use very dark cake pans, the edges may cook faster than the centers. Another problem could be your oven is running hot. To fix the problem, reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees and cook until done. Don’t remove from the oven until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Email me if you want more tips or a new recipe. I’ve found a few I like even better.
Emi
Hi!,, I tried to bake the ” best yellow cake “by Carole Walter and I couldn’t. I used all the ingredients properly and the result was a disaster. Both pans were not made inside and burned outside.
what happened?
I Made twice and no results….can you help me??
Ty’s
Emi
Anna
Before I became a more experienced baker, my yellow cakes were more like cornbread too. You have to use the precise amount of flour, cream the butter and sugar properly and have all ingredients at the right temperature. Still, some recipes are better than others. You should try Shirley Corriher’s or CI’s is you didn’t like the texture of this one.
Terri
If your wanting to make a good yellow cake this is NOT the one… It taste more like cornbread than a cake….
Heather - Ghost Baker
I like doing only one 9inch layer sometimes. Simple.. delicious.. and just enough!
Patricia
Have you tried Shirley Corriher’s yellow cake from Bakewise? Hands down my favorite yellow/golden cake yet.
Sarah
What do you do with all of your baking results? Does your family eat everything? I love your blog and fascinated that you make something everyday!!
Katrina
It’s my friends birthday on Friday, so I want to make a fun cake to take to our Thursday night Survivor nights for her. Hurry up and do all your experiments and let me know which is best! 😉 You’re really making me want that old familiar taste of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. But, hmm, I also just found a bunch of shredded zucchini in the freezer (need to clean it out!) so now I’m thinking I might make chocolate zucchini cake.
Louise
What I do when I half a recipe is to cut the single layer in half before I frost it and then build a half of a two layer cake. I just like to see a two layer cake. 🙂