Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Cake

Ingredients

• 315 g King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1¼ tsp salt
• ⅝ tsp baking powder
• 5 large eggs
• 347 granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp (14g) vanilla extract
• ⅛ tsp almond extract, optional, for enhanced flavor
• 323 g milk (whole milk preferred)
• 4 Tbsp (57g) butter, cut into pats
• ⅓ cup (67g) vegetable oil

Directions

• Preheat oven to 340º F
  (note the temp is for 9350')
• If you do not have 8" rounds of parchment paper, invert one of your pans on a cutting board with parchment paper underneath, cut the paper using the pan as a guide. It is OK that the paper will be slightly larger than the interior bottom of the pan.
  
• Lightly grease (butter) 3 8" pans, then line the bottoms with parchment paper cut to circles and grease the paper. Note you also grease the bottom of the pan before putting the paper on.
  
• In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix well with a fork and set aside
• In a large mixing bowl, either using an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract, until thickened and light gold in color, about 2 minutes at medium-high speed. If your stand mixer doesn’t have a whisk attachment, beat for 5 minutes using the paddle attachment. The batter should fall in thick ribbons from the beaters, whisk, or paddle.
• Add the dry ingredients to the mixture in the bowl and mix — by hand or on low speed of a mixer — just enough to combine. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then mix again briefly, to fully incorporate any residual flour or sticky bits.
• In a saucepan set over medium heat or in the microwave, bring the milk just to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter and oil, stirring by hand until the butter has melted.Slowly mix the hot milk-butter-oil mixture into the batter, stirring on low speed of a mixer until everything is well combined. Scrape the bowl and mix briefly, just until smooth.
• Divide the batter evenly between the three pans. I use a scale to help with this.
• Bake the cakes until the edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan, a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, and the top feels set. This should take about 25 to 30 minutes for three 8” pans, (note this is different from sea level). I found that the tempurature that King Arthur wants is too high. At 25 min, the toothpick is clean. The internal temp is between 185º F and 190º F any warmer and the cake will be dry, not moist.
  
• Remove the cakes from the oven, carefully loosen the edges, and allow them to cool for 15 minutes in the pans. Then turn them out of the pans and transfer them to a rack, right-side up, to cool to room temperature.
  

Frosting

Ingredients

• 106g (1¼) natural cocoa powder
• 454g (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, divided
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 74g (⅓ cup) hot water
• 14g 1Tbsp) vanilla extract
• 284g (20 Tbsp) butter, softened

Directions

• In your mixer with the whisk attachment start on low and mix the cocoa powder, around 1 cup of the confectioners’ sugar (no need for precision), and the salt.
• Add in the water and vanilla, scraping the bowl if necessary, until combined
• Add the butter and remaining confectioners’ sugar, stirring to combine. Using an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat the frosting at medium-high speed for 1 to 2 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy, stopping halfway through to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.
• Check consistancy of the frosting. If it seems too stiff to spread add water 1 Tbsp at a time. I had to add one extra Tbsp

Cake Assembly

• If the layers have too much of a dome, use a bread knife to remove some of the domes to flatten
• Place one of the cake layers on a serving plate, bottom up. If the dome is not big, do not bother to trim it.
  
• Spread the bottom layer with enough frosting for a ¼” to ½” thick layer. Center the second layer bottom-side down.  This layer probably should have its dome trimmed. Press gently to set it in place.
• Frost the top of the second layer and put the top layer on bottom down, again gently pressing in place.
  
• Finish frosting the cake.
  
• I used a serrated bread knife after the frosting is applied to help smooth the frosting out.
  
• Notes: You can refrigerate after a thin frosting for a crumb coat, but the cake recipe here at 9350 was very firm and did not crumble when frosting so I did not need a crumb coat

Ratios for sea level to 9350'