I apologize to all of you who do not (yet!) own 6-inch round cake pans, but I’m having fun with mine and am enjoying scaling down larger recipes. We just haven’t had a lot of need for large cakes lately, but I still love making them. So given that, here’s a recipe for a Six Inch White Cake.
The recipe started as my Funfetti Cupcakes halved and baked in 6-inch pans rather than cupcake cups. Fuzz and I enjoyed it, but I wanted to try a second version so I made a new one with buttermilk. I usually associate buttermilk with chocolate or yellow cake rather than white cake, but in the end we both liked the buttermilk version better.
For the frosting, I was going to make a rich buttercream but at the last minute opted to go with Stella Parks’ recipe for Classic American Buttercream. Maybe next time I’ll do a Swiss or one of the others from her buttercream recipe collection on Serious Eats. I’ll update if I try any of the other frostings.
Six Inch White Cake aka Birthday Cake
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups 150 grams cake flour (not all purpose!)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup buttermilk room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or a combo of vanilla and almond extract
- 1 stick 114 grams unsalted butter softened
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons 175 grams granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 large egg whites 82 grams room temperature from 3 large eggs (SEE NOTE)
- 1 tablespoon heaping colored sprinkles
American Style Buttercream
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter softened (168 grams)
- 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar 270 grams
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream plus more cream (or milk) as needed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla bean paste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 6-inch round cake pans.
- First, weigh your flour then sift it with the baking powder. Stir in the salt (it tends to get clogged in the sifter, so it’s best to just stir it in after. Set aside.
- With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, scraping sides of bowl often. Beat in the vanilla and almond extract.
- Using a rubber scraper to stir, add the milk and flour mixture to the batter in thirds, alternating (milk, flour, milk, flour, milk, flour) and stirring until blended. It will be very thick at this point. I
- With the electric mixer, beat on medium high speed for 20 seconds or until batter is free of lumps and all flour is incorporated.
- In a clean bowl using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks start to form. Discard 1/3 cup (17 grams) of the beaten egg white and fold the remainder (about 82 grams) into the batter.
- Stir sprinkles into the cake batter (if using), then divide between the two pans. You should get somewhere around 10 oz/280 grams per pan.
- Bake at 350 for 28 to 30 minutes. Let cool on a baking rack for 10 minutes, then carefully turn from pans. Let cool completely.
- To make the frosting, beat the butter with an electric mixer until fluffy, then gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar. Beat in the cream and vanilla, using more cream (or adding a little milk) to thin if needed.
Notes
Lisa Keys
With only two in this house the 6-inch cake is perfect! Love my pans and look forward to seeing more of your cakes here
Sonya
This is so cute! I love my six inch pans, and recently got some for my sister (Fat Daddios on Amazon), pretty inexpensive! She made the cutest German chocolate cake with berries for a birthday dinner with just 3 of them. I’ve never done anything to adjust a recipe except divide by 2, and I’m no expert but the results have always seemed great to me 🙂
Anna
Sue, I remember back in elementary school someone brought those ice cream cone cupcakes to school and I thought it they were just the coolest things ever. I wonder why people don’t make them more often.
Sue
I like seeing your six inch cake recipes even though I don’t own six inch pans. Some day I will get some and when that day comes I’ll have lots of recipes to choose from. 🙂
This cake looks like fun. All funfetti type recipes make me think of cake baked in ice cream cones. I had that once as a child and it seemed so cool and fun to me at the time.