cloud cakes // a homeschool recipe

today at school we learned about clouds ... i say we because i had no idea that the thin, feathery clouds were bits of ice ... did you? homeschooling is amazing in that way. i learn so much through teaching her. in more ways than one. she made a little diagram of the three types of clouds and presented it to daddy before we indulged in our cloud cakes. 

i adapted this recipe from a recipe for vanilla bean cake that i have made several times. this time, the trick was to whisk air into the batter as much as possible to get a light and fluffy cake as result. and oh boy, were they light and fluffy! nom. 

here are the tools you will need:

• two large bowls, one small
• a whisk
• an electric mixer
• rubber spatula 
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• cooling rack
• three, three inch round cake pans or a muffin pan

for the cake:

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons milk, room temperature
• 2 large egg whites, room temperature
• half stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or a little more if you want
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

for the frosting:

• 1 and 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• i used about half bag of 32 oz powdered sugar. id say about 12 to 15oz will do
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 2-4 tablespoons of milk, although today i didn't need any milk

 cake directions:

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. grease pans with vegetable shortening, line with parchment and flour pans. if making cupcakes, just pop in some liners. 
3. sift together dry ingredients and set aside. 
4. whisk milk and egg whites. really whisk it! you want lots of air to get in there. it will make for a fluffy cake. set aside. 
5. with your electric mixer, beat on medium speed the sugar, butter and vanilla bean paste. beat for quiet some time (about three minutes) until you can tell it has become light and sort of fluff like. add vanilla extract and then mix again for a few seconds. 
6. now slowly add your dry ingredients to the sugar mixture. alternate milk mixture and dry ingredients. be sure to scrape sides every now and again. i ended with the milk mixture. 
7. once everything is blended thoroughly, give it one last mix on medium speed. 
8. pour batter into cake pans and bake until a tooth pick is pulled out clean. about twenty minutes. 
9. allow to cool on rack. make sure completely cooled before applying frosting. 

frosting directions:

1. with your electric mixer, blend all ingredients except the milk ... hold off because you may not need it. just wait and see if you think it is too thick. 
2. apply icing to cooled cakes. we used a pastry bag to swirl it around so it looked like a cloud. ;)

side note! if using three, three inch pans for this cake ... you can stack em! they make the sweetest little individual size cake for a special someone on their birthday.