Smitten Kitchens Homemade Yellow Cake and Savory Sweet Life's Homemade Chocolate Buttercream Icing

So...I've never thought of myself as someone who is good in the kitchen, but every once in awhile I get homemaker burst and start baking and cooking and cleaning like a mad women. Usually its after watching food network haha, for some reason that channel just inspires me to cook better, bake, and clean deeper. Ive been on a roll since im getting back to my ol self since having Riley. I've always had this desire to learn how to decorate cakes and bake well even though i've never felt that good at it. I keep thinking how neat it would be to have a bakery. Then I realized having a bakery you can just go buy boxed cakes lol! You need to know how to make them from scratch. So I decided to learn. I spent about two days searching online reading all types of different yellow cake ( since my hubby said thats his fave only later to say he doesnt even like cake at all after all my slaving away for days to find it and make it for him) recipes. I finally found one at the Smitten Kitchen's blog a friend of mine said that she had tried some of her recipes and they were good and I had already eyeballed her site so that helped me decide hers was the one to try. I have usually always made my own icing for cakes since I really hate store bought icing, but I had never made a chocolate buttercream icing so I searched and searched for one, compared lots of dif sites and their ingredients, the one that stood out to me the most was the one I found at the Savory Sweet Life blog. Hers just looked amazing. Plus it one that I could decorate with since I wanted to play around with different decorating tips I had just bought. So with my newborn and 2 year old it took me a good 7 hours! It should never take that long to bake a cake, but I had to constantly stop. It was so worth it. This cake was AMAZING! It tasted sooooo good. I highly recommend you try it. I still have no problem making a box cake just for the quickness of it, but for the flavor, and the self appreciation of doing it on your own I definitely recommend making your own. I also purchased an apron from Flirty Aprons so it made baking even more fun! Keep an eye on groupon because I got mine with an awesome groupon so it was like half the price! I ended up getting the sassy black one. I should add the density of this cake is insane...I normally eat a LOT of cake. A huge slice...but you cant with this cake, its so filling in just a small slither of a slice. So keep that in mind. My picture does no justice as to how big this cake is...so be ready to feed plenty of people with this.

So here is the recipes although you could just click on the links above that will take you straight to the sites recipes with much better photos than mine (working on that ;) 

Best Yellow Layer Cake 

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (480 grams) cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 grams) table salt
2 sticks (1 cup, 1/2 pound or 225 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (400 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk (475 ml), well-shaken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

When it comes to prepping the pans, I just used shortening all over then added flour on top of that and it worked perfect.

                                               Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

A simple recipe for classic chocolate buttercream frosting. Perfect for frosting cakes, cookies, brownies, or cupcakes.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!)
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

Instructions

1. Cream butter for a few minutes in a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Turn off the mixer. Sift 3 cups powdered sugar and cocoa into the mixing bowl. Turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the dry ingredients do not blow everywhere) until the sugar and cocoa are absorbed by the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add a little more sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add additional milk 1 tablespoon at a time.