White Cake

My soon to be DIL loves cake so I've been making her a cake each Friday.....Cake Friday is something to look forward to when you work hard all week.  Plus it gives me cake practice which I sorely need.  I hate cake and never eat it so I am relying on others for feedback.

 I start out by greasing the pans the way my mother taught me to.  Use a ball of waxed paper wiped with crisco.

 Then line the pans with parchment and flour them.

The Recipe:

Ingredients

1. • 2 1/4 cups cake flour
   • 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
   • 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
   • 2 teaspoons almond extract
   • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
   • 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
   • 4 teaspoons baking powder
   • 1 teaspoon table salt
   • 12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened but still cool

Preparation

1. 1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees. spray; line the bottoms with parchment rounds.  Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts into 2-cup glass measure, and mix with fork until blended. Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter; continue beating at slow speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no powdery streaks remaining. Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed (or high speed if using handheld mixer) for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium speed and beat 20 seconds longer. Divide batter evenly between two prepared cake pans; using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops. Bake until thin skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean about 25 minutes. Let cakes rest in pans for 3 minutes. Loosen from sides of pans with a knife and invert onto wire racks. additional wire racks. Let cool completely.

Brush both layers with simple syrup.  Then brush one side with lemon curd.

Brush the other layer with strawberry jam.

 Spread whichever frosting you use on one of the layers and place the second layer on top of it.

 Place waxed paper around the base and frost the cake.

I sprinkled the top with Sparkling White Sugar on the top. Gently remove the waxed paper.

 Okay, so I need more practice.  My layers dipped a bit in the middle so the frosting is thicker there.

 My soon to be DIL ate it anyway.  So did everyone else.