Cook’s Illustrated Perfect White Almond Layer Cake with Almond Buttercream ((it’s as if wedding bells ring with every bite!))

I am so thrilled and excited to have the opportunity to share this recipe with you today. I recently made this cake for Gracie’s birthday and if you are following me on Instagram or Facebook, you know all about that! I practically bragged about how good this cake was. 

I stumbled across this recipe while searching on Pinterest for “the very best white cake”. A blog conducted a test of cake recipes and sure enough, this recipe was the winner. However, the recipe was not shared and was linked to an Amazon page selling a Cook’s Illustrated cookbook.

Well, lucky for me – the lack of recipe was not a problem for me! I happen to have a subscription to the Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country and the Test Kitchen website – which gives me full access to all recipes old and new along with valuable info about kitchen equipment and tools.

This Classic White Layer Cake was published in 1995. Yippee, for your dining enjoyment – I will share it with you!

When I made this cake, I reserved 3 cups of cake batter and tinted it. Then I dolloped in the cake pans, swirled and baked. It was a simple way to make this cake extra girly ((perfect for LaLa’s birthday!)).

Preparing the cake pans AND lining them with parchment are an important part of the success of this recipe! Who has time for a stuck cake?? As you can see it the photos above, fitting each pan with the right sized parchment sheet is a simple task. Trace and cut – just like you learned in kindergarten.

Want to add a little bling to your cake – but don’t have professional skills?? Well, neither do I – but no one needs to know that. All I did was freehand draw the age we were celebrating and place the stencil on the cake ((of course clean, sturdy paper is important)).

Pour the sprinkles all over the top of the cake, dust the sprinkles off of the stencil and gently remove it from the cake. Gorgeous, simple perfection!

Here are a few additional notes from the Test Kitchen regarding this recipe:

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:

We designed our white cake recipe without the dryness and the holes and tunnels common to many recipes we had tried. Every traditional white cake recipe calls for stiffly beaten egg whites folded into the batter at the end. We began to suspect that it was the beaten egg whites that were forming the large air pockets and those unsightly holes in the baked cakes. We solved this problem by mixing the egg whites with the milk before beating them into the flour-and-butter mixture. The cake was not only fine-grained and hole-free, but, to our surprise, it was also larger and lighter than the ones we’d prepared with beaten whites.

*If you have forgotten to bring the milk and egg white mixture to room temperature, set the bottom of the glass measure containing it in a sink of hot water and stir until the mixture feels cool rather than cold, around 65 degrees. Cake layers can be wrapped and stored for one day; frosting can be covered with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for several hours. Once assembled, the cake should be covered with an inverted bowl or cake cover and refrigerated. Under its coat of frosting, it will remain fresh for up to three days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. There is enough frosting to pipe a border around the base and top of the cake. If you want to decorate the cake more elaborately, you should make one and a half times the frosting recipe. You may also substitute lemon curd for the raspberry jam in the filling. If desired, finish the sides of the cake with 1 cup of sliced almonds.