Scratch bakers...Whats you best recipe?

All you scratch bakers out there willing to share your recipe with us...What is your best scratch recipe(s). The most requested, moist, best flavor, texture, etc.
Mine is a yellow cake. I get the most compliments on it.
3 cups cake flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 14/ cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sour cream
Preheat according to pan you are using. Grease pans. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside. Cream butter, and sugar together, add eggs, and vanilla; mis well. Add flour mixture alternate with milk.Add oil and sour cream, mix well. Beat for one minute. Bake and cool.
Makes about 6 cups.

Oops I added it now. Just add oil and sour cream at the end and mix well. And I'd like to have that white velvet recipe too.

Here I found the White Velvet cake recipe at a 911 baking forum through a web search. I am going to try this ASAP!


This cake is from "The Cake Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I recommend it to every person interested in cake baking. This is the best white cake I have ever had, and can be made in any flavor. The butter makes it a little on the "off white" side, but after you taste it, you really don't care! When people want a really great wedding cake, but they want traditional white, this is the cake I make. I have used this cake with many fillings & many buttercreams.

4 large egg whites / 135 grams
1 cup milk / 242 grams
2 1/2 tsp vanilla (or any extract flavor: almond, lemon, orange, etc.) / 9 grams
1 - 2 tablespoons lemon or orange zest (peel) or 1/8 teaspoon pure citrus oil
3 cups sifted cake flour / 300 grams
4 tsp baking powder / 19.5 grams
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar / 300 grams
3/4 tsp salt / 5 grams
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes and then sit out to soften / 170 grams

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 2, 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with bakers grease or vegetable oil spray and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment or wax paper.

In a 4 cup bowl, combine the egg whites, 1/4 cup milk, vanilla, and orange zest. Beat with a fork to combine. Set aside.

In your mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt and mix with the paddle on low speed for 30 seconds to incorporate. Add the butter cubes to the dry ingredients and the remaining 3/4 cup of milk. Mix on low until the mixture is moistened. Scrape the bowl and increase the speed to medium and beat 1 1/2 minutes. Scrape and gradually add the egg white mixture in three batches, beat 20 seconds after each addition, then scrape the bowl each time.

Pour into the prepared pans and smooth the top. Bake 30+ minutes until the top is light brown and springs back when lightly touched. The sides should not shrink back from the pan until after you remove it from the oven.

Remove cake from oven and let cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn the cake out onto cooling racks. Cool completely and finish with your favorite frosting. You can also wrap well and freeze for up to 2 months.

From The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Cool. I'll have to get the book to try the recipes. Thanks.