Vanilla Cake and Buttercream Frosting

Last night the baby kept me up quite a bit. She's going through her 8 month old "sleep regression", when their brain is developing rapidly so they have a hard time sleeping. So today, I didn't feel like making some long elaborate meal.

I had intended to make spicy tortilla soup, but once I got back from my walk and looked at the ingredient list I realized the only thing we had was tortillas, and I wasn't going to go off my budget and spend more money.

So I made more stuffed shells, and decided to make a homemade cake for my recipe.

Now typically I make this AMAZING chocolate cake that has espresso in it, and it's definitely my favorite, but today I wanted to try a Yellow/ Vanilla cake. It wasn't as delicious as the chocolate cake, but it was decent. It was a little bit dense though, if you could fluffen it up a bit then it would have been much better. I'm just not exactly sure how to do so! If you do, let me know so I can do it next time!

What you'll need: (for the cake)

• 1 cup butter
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

The original recipe comes from "All Recipes" I love that site, it's so great.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9x13 inch pans. Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

For the Buttercream Frosting:

Once again the recipe comes from "All Recipes"

Now, I cut way back on this recipe because the original recipe calls for 8 cups of confectioners sugar, and really.. I don't need 8 cups worth of frosting, that's a lot! So here is the modified version;

2 cups of confectioners sugar (I make this by using organic sugar processed in a VitaMixer)
1/4 cup of butter (do not substitute, it's called "buttercream" for a reason!)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Milk

In a mixing bowl cream the butter until smooth, beat in sugar and vanilla until smooth. Once you get that far, add a tiny bit of milk at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

Enjoy!

~ Cherise