Hi, after reading 'The great scratch off' on cc from a few years ago I tried making Sylvia Weinstocks classic yellow cake recipe (original recipe). But the cake came out very dense. Even though I  used cake flour I wonder if the recipe maybe didn't need  the 'required' extra minute of beating at the end. In Australia we use Lighthouse (Anchor) brand cake flour it has a protein content of 8.7%. Maybe our flour has a slightly higher protein content than most U.S cake flour. Also I wondered if I measured the flour wrong. She calls for 2 1/4 cups of sifted cake flour. So I sifted it before measuring (and took into account that your measuring cups are smaller than ours) it still came to 280g or 9.8 oz. To Rose Levy Beranbaum a cup of sifted cake flour is 100g or 3.5oz. I really want to get this cake right as the original has such high praise. I'm also considering adding 1/4 cup of milk and the ginger as some recommend (not the whole 1 cup of milk as in the NEW recipe). Also in Australia our sour cream is about 36% fat I've been led to believe that in America your sour cream is a lot lower in fat. Any thoughts??

Anyone?

I think you can overmix a batter once the eggs are added.  But I'm not 100% sure.  Sorry!

I'm not a pro, but i think that you could overmix a cake batter.

You need to beat the sugar and butter into a cream, and then add the eggs...at this point you need to beat it a lot!!! That will add lightness to your cake batter, it will add ''air'' to the mixture. Then you add your dry ingredients and liquids. Always finish with the dry ingredients. At this point....do not over beat. I normaly use a spatula at the end to finish mixing my batter. 

How was the cake batter??? Thick???

I'm sorry if i made a bunch of mistakes in my writting...english is not my first language.

Best of luck for your recipe.

Sandra

The batter was quite thick, I think 9.8oz of flour may have been too much.

Maybe this will help you. I explain how to make a perfect cake: http://www.squidoo.com/dragon-birthday-cake
 

Good luck

AI think the problem is the protein content if your cake flour. US cake flour is 7-8% and I think some may be lower. The extra beating develops the gluten (higher protein = more gluten) which makes your cake denser and more bread-like.

You can definitely over mix with cake flour.  When anything with water is mixed with flour and agitated, gluten starts to develop.  For what it's worth, a lot of people don't like Sylvia's cake because of shrinking problems.  Give Warren Brown's Yellow Butter cake a try.  I think you can find a video of it on YouTube.  It uses potato starch.  Also, look for recipes which utilize reverse creaming in the method.  Most of Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipes are this way.  This means that fat and sometimes a small amount of liquid are added to the flour before the rest of the liquid ingredients are added.  The fat coats the flour particles and minimizes gluten development when water is added.

Thank you so much everybody for your help, especially you auzzi. So do you think its worth even using the cake flour? (It's all I can get). I made this cake again (before I read the last post) with 225g of cake flour only 2 ts. baking powder and our Aussie full fat sour cream and 1/4 cup of milk.  At the end though I stirred the flour and sour cream in by hand.  It was so soft and yummy but it barely rose and this morning it tastes a bit heavy. auzzi do you think an extra  ts. of baking powder would be enough? I don't want to over do it as I think this recipe relies on egg whites for most of it raising. Also I'll try it with  Light sour cream. I think I had everything else correct. I'll try this recipe once more and then if it doesn't work I'll give up.