Butter Cake with Perfect Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting...For My Lauren

Category: Desserts
Difficulty: 

I created this cake for my very grown-up daughter Lauren. She is a fabulous cook!  But when she has her birthday, she always wants the same cake: Butter Cake (the Duncan Hines mix) with canned Fudge Frosting. This is because that's what I made her every year when she was a little girl. This year, I am going to try to lure her away from prepared mixes and plastic tubs with a from-scratch version. I recently found the most delicious butter cake recipe EVER in Saveur magazine. It's so moist and buttery... I paired it with a Perfect Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. All for you Lauren! Love you! Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients:

Butter Cake:
16 T unsalted butter
3 C cake flour
2 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 C milk
2 t vanilla
1 1/2 C sugar
4 eggs (at room temperature--or warmed while still in shells in a bowl of hot tap water for 5 minutes)

Perfect Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:
12 oz. cream cheese
1 C sifted good cocoa (I like Droste)
1 stick salted butter (softened)
1 1/2 t vanilla
6 C sifted powdered sugar
Add one or two t milk if needed

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour three 9-inch cake pans and set aside. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together milk and vanilla in a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. On low speed, alternately add dry ingredients in 2 batches. Increase speed to high and beat until batter is smooth, about 5 seconds. Divide batter in prepared pans and smooth top with a spatula or knife. Bake cakes until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cakes cool for 20 minutes in pans, then remove.

For Frosting: Mix first three ingredients in a medium-sized bowl on medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla. Gradually add 6 C sifted powdered sugar 2 C at a time--beating on high speed the last few minutes. Be sure and let the frosting "rest" for a couple of hours either in the refrigerator or on the cake or cupcakes before you serve them. For some reason this makes any bitter aftertaste of the cocoa go away. I don't know why. Ask Alton Brown when you see him.