Like many of you, I pride myself on baking from scratch. And, like many of you, I have searched far and wide for a great white scratch recipe with no luck. I kept going back to WASC just because it is easy and good, but there are several problems I have with WASC (as other posters have mentioned as well):
- My cakes tend to sink in the middle
- The cakes are TOO moist and therefore not great for carving, etc.
Then, one happy day I came across an amazing recipe for WASC that is from scratch. I can't take credit for this gem, it was originally posted on CC by edencakes. Let me tell you though, cake buddies, this is THE recipe. I have been using it for a couple of weeks now with outstanding results. It's super moist with a very fine crumb, has a delicious flavor, bakes up like a dream, and is firm enough for stacking and carving. I have even used this base recipe and made slight modifications for lemon cake, peanut butter cake, coconut cake, and pumpkin spice cake all with excellent, consistent results every time! So here it is:
A Better White Scratch Cake:
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/2165/A-Better-White-Scratch-Cake
The OP didn't state a bake temp, but I have been baking at 350 with great results. Also, when I am not looking for a pure white cake I just use 5 whole eggs instead of 10 egg whites, and have had no problems doing so.THANK YOU edencakes for this amazing recipe!
awesome thanks for posting!!!
Couple of questions:
1. Does c = cups?
2. How many cups of flour does it say because my comp made the text look funny on that line
OP stated it makes 10 cups of batter.
I'm curious......have you tried subbing out the shortening with butter?
Thank you for sharing your good results. I wonder about using butter (or at least part butter) in this? Maybe I'll give it a shot this week.
Yeah, I'm a butter girl.
Me too Lenette.....if you do try it, please let us know how you like it....I'd appreciate it greatly!
Thanks!
oh i totally missed out the fact it had shortening it in, i would also be curious about the butter cose i don't use shortening
sounds great (except for the shortening)...hope someone tries it with butter and reports back!
OP stated it makes 10 cups of batter.
Oh dear, that's what I get for skimming.
I'd like to try this, but how do you add the shortening? Just dump it in solid or does it have to be creamed? If you use butter does it need to be done the same way? The only recipe I've used that has shortening in it was for a pound cake and the shortening was creamed in the first step with the sugar.
OP stated it makes 10 cups of batter.
Oh dear, that's what I get for skimming.
No worries....I skim all the time!!
I've been looking for a scratch version for a VERY long time now. Thank you for posting. I think I'll make this soon and try it with butter though, not crazy about shortening.
Just baked some cupcakes with butter and a couple other modifications.
Cupcakes are YUMMY!
The first batch I screwed up cuz I added 10 whole eggs, not paying attention. Anyway, re-bake went much better.
2 1/2 cups of milk was WAAAAY too much but I use cake flour and I sift so I thought that may be the culprit. 1 cup was just fine.
So, I made the following changes:
1 cup of milk instead of 2 1/2
butter no shortening
5 whole eggs
added 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
I used vanilla, no almond
I think that's it. Sorry, I never seem to follow a recipe as written.
After the cupcakes were so good (and light and fluffy and tender, well I could go on... ), I put in the cake layers. So far they have baked up nice and flat, nice color etc.
I am very pleased with this so far. Hope this helps someone and you will give it a try!
ETA-- I forgot to say that I mixed a bit different too.
I sifted the flour, added other dry ingredients. Then eggs, butter and sour cream in that order. Vanilla then milk.
Lenette: Have you made the WASC before with only egg whites? Cose i want to substitute 5 whole eggs instead of 10 egg whites in the recipe too and wondered if you found the whole eggs gave it a different taste?
Nope. sorry never tried it with just whites. I don't see how the taste would be that different. In my experience "yellow" cakes are more tender than "white" cakes because of the yolks.
I think that would be the biggest difference.
Lenette, thanks for sharing your results and tips for this recipe. I can't wait to try it.
Hi everyone,
I tried this one out today with butter and the rest of Lenette's suggestions....i.e. 1 cup milk, 1/2tsp bak soda, 5 whole eggs, and vanilla (no almond).
It's a very moist yet light and fluffy cake with a fine crumb. All family members that tasted it agree. This is a keeper.
Thanks OP for sharing and thanks Lenette for your substitutions.
I baked at 350 degrees....2- 10" pans for approx 50 min. The cakes both baked up very even with no dome and didn't shrink or fall at all upon cooling. This is a great cake, easy too!
Thank you. I look forward to trying this out soon. I would love to stop buying box mixes so I won't feel like I'm cheating.
you guys are WONDERFUL!!!! I was looking for a recipe from scratch I'll try this tomorrow morning. Thank you so so much.
My ears always perk up when I hear about a good white cake recipe, with a fine crumb. I'm going to have to give it a try! Thanks so much for posting this!
After reading the others posts I'm wondering if the gal who used butter ( my favorite ingredient) instead of the shortening, found she only needed 1 cup milk instead of 2 1/2 cups because of that substitution alone.
I recently read a post about "butter". It said that butter is partly milk and water. If you think about it it makes sense. If you melt butter it will separate and you will end up with the whey (I believe, on top) and the clarified butter fat on the bottom. That must account for using significantly less milk when you use butter instead of shortening. I know when I melt shortening it never separates it's just all liquid fat.
So now my question is, if you substitute butter for shortening and use less liquid, how much fat should you be trying to replace? Do you need to sub a little more butter for the shortening?
Just my 2 cents. Anyway I'm really excited to try the first recipe with the shortening and then try any changes after that if I'm feeling like I want to experiment. I definately will try adding butter flavoring with the shortening recipe for an experiment.
One more thought on experimenting with this recipe is...I wonder what difference it would make to melt the shortening before adding it in the recipe? I have read about liquid shortening called for in white cakes made in bakeries. But it sounded like they purchased it that way (I mean in a liquid form). I tried to search it out but didn't have a lot of luck. I'm just wondering out loud.
Can you tell I think a lot about white cake? It's because I have a favorite bakery that makes great white cake. I am always comparing every white cake I make to theirs. I've never been able to duplicate it for myself. For now I am excited to try this new recipe out! Thanks again! Sorry so long.
cocobean, I too substituted butter for the shortening. I used 1 1/3 cup butter (same amount as the shortening) and I too only needed 1 cup of milk.
I let the butter soften to room temp and creamed it with the sugar first, then added the eggs one at a time, vanilla, sour cream and then the dry ingredients (sifted) alternately with the milk. I treated it as any other scratch yellow/white cake as far as the mixing method went.
I use cake flour (sifted) so that could be why I only needed the 1 cup of milk, not sure...but the batter was perfect after only adding 1 cup so I stopped at that point.
I used 5 whole eggs and it is a very pale yellow cake. I think I'll try it with the 10 egg whites next time for a true white cake result.
HTH
I'm so glad you guys are having as much fun playing with this recipe as I have! Lenette- I'm excited to try your modifications with butter instead of shortening. Here are a few other subs I have made to the original recipe with great results:
*Substitute creamy peanut butter for the shortening (same amount)....Makes an AMAZING peanut butter cake which I then pair with chocolate buttercream. When I make this peanut butter version, I always use 5 whole eggs instead of the 10 egg whites.
*Substitute flavored liquid creamer instead of the milk. My fave so far has been the white chocolate raspberry.
*Substitute canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix, just regular pumpkin) for the sour cream. Add 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg for an amazing pumpkin spice cake. It pairs deeeeliciously with cream cheese frosting.
Happy Baking guys and gals!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%