1-2-3-4 Cake

Over at Big Brass Blog my fellow blogger, and horse lover Ms. Mule from East Jayzus Mizzurah was talking about a recipe for a cake her grandma called 1-2-3-4 Cake. That got me thinking about it and I recalled dimly that somewhere in the little boxes of recipes on index cards I have handed down from generations of cooks in the family that I had seen that one. It took a couple of dusty crawls through the attic before I found the right box that held the right little box, but damn, I did.

This is another great recipe to make with a kid. There are no excessively dangerous or complex steps. Just straightforward basic techniques. It's not a bad cake either. So let's get at it.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 cups cake flour
4 eggs
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°, grease and flour (or hose down with baker's spray) three 9" round cake pans. In a large mixing bowl cream together the sugar and butter until it is light and fluffy. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl. With the mixer at medium speed, add the eggs, one at a time to the butter and sugar. Mix with each egg until smooth and totally mixed and scrape down the sides of the pan. Add in the milk and the dry sifted ingredients together alternately, making sure everything stays smooth and then add in the extracts. Keep mixing until totally smooth. Pour evenly into the prepared cake pans and bake at 350° for 20 to 30 minutes. A perfectly done cake will spring back when the center is poked. Overbaking will toughen it and tough cake is some tough shit.

Cool on racks for 10 minutes, then remove from the pans and cool completely before frosting with what ever frosting the kid you're doing this with picks out.

3B's