Birthdays and Buttermilk: Vanilla Cake

My grandma's one lucky lady... not only is she very well travelled (having toured western Europe, most of the United States and all of Canada excepting the territories), but she is being taken down to Florida again by my grandfather for 4 weeks starting this week! Since she's going to be missing her own birthday celebration this year (her birthday falling in early Febuary), we're throwing her a little party tonight. Of course, this gives me a chance to get back into the kitchen (even though I had my first 4-hour class at George Brown yesterday... amazing BTW with more explanation later) and bake up a storm! We had some buttermilk in the fridge, left over from making one of my sister's favourite cakes earlier, and I knew that the family wanted a vanilla cake. Chocolate, though enjoyed occasionally by the family, isn't usually the choice when there is an alternate available.

So, this wound up being the cake I made for my grandmother's birthday party. I altered a recipe from a cupcake recipe by Nicole from Baking Bites. Deliciously moist and very vanilla-y, I think this would be a perfect all-purpose cake for all occasions, or even just because! I cut out all the salt from the original recipe, even when I doubled it (Nic's made 12 cupcakes), and the lack of salt in this recipe definitely allows the sweetness of the sugar, the subtle tang of the buttermilk and the rich creaminess of the butter shine through. Thank you so much, Nicole, for a great basic recipe for me to tweak! Hopefully everyone will enjoy it as much as I think they will, provided they ignore my shoddy decorating technique!

Buttery Buttermilk Vanilla Cake

Serves 12
2 2/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cup sugar
¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
2 cups buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease & flour two 9" cake pans.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat the butter, shortening and sugar together until creamy.
4. Beat in the eggs and the vanilla.
5. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until almost combined.
6. Add buttermilk and stir, again, until almost combined.
7. Add the rest of the flour and stir until all ingredients are mixed in.
8. Pour into prepared pans.
9. Bake 40-45 minutes.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 298.9
Total Fat: 9.6 g
Cholesterol: 49.8 mg
Sodium: 54.4 mg
Total Carbs: 48.2 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.7 g
Protein: 5.3 g