Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Cake

Ingredients 6500 feet above sea level, in Basalt, CO

• 304 g King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1¼ tsp table salt
• 1 tsp baking powder, note this may be too much reduction
  
• 5 large eggs
• 347 g granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp (14g) vanilla extract
• ⅛ tsp almond extract, optional, for enhanced flavor
• 270 g milk (whole milk preferred)
• 4 Tbsp (57g) butter, cut into pats
• ⅓ cup (67g) vegetable oil

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350º F
  (note the temp is for my oven 6500', being a bottom feeder Bosch, I can only go in 25 degree increments)
• 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.  See below
  
• 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 20 to 25 minutes for three 8” pans, (note this is different from sea level). I found that the temperature 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. My first try at 6500 hit 200, which may be a bit too high
  
• 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 consistency 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.  See Cake Tacos below for what to do with the dome you have removed.
  
• Place one of the cake layers on a serving plate, bottom up.
  
• 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

Table of ingredients

Ingredients 9350 feet above sea level where I used to live in Summit County, CO

• 315 g King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1¼ tsp table salt
• ⅝ tsp baking powder
• 5 large eggs
• 347 g 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

Other Measurement Notes:

My Kitchen-aid bowl weighs 1048 grams empty. After the batter was finished it weighed in at 2378 grams. This means that the batter was 1300 grams. Each layer should be therefore around 433 grams. In point of fact, 420 to 425 is closer to even on all of them. Put the first pan on the scale, re-tare to 0 and put 425 in.  Repeat for the second and third pan. When the measurement is made on the third pan, adjust to better equalize between the three and then put in the oven.

Cake Tacos!!!

When you take a sharp knife to get rid of the dome on the layers, save what you have shaved off, and spread some of the frosting and roll up and eat. Might be the best part of this recipe!!