1-2-3-4 Cake with Chocolate Ermine Frosting

The Best Birthday Cake Recipe

The Beloved’s lovely boss emailed a few days ago asking if I would make a small birthday cake for one of their coworkers. Of course I said “sure,” because what’s a birthday without a birthday cake? And what’s better for a birthday cake than a 1234 cake? For me, not much at all.

The magical 1-2-3-4 cake bakes up into the most delicious cake that falls somewhere between a pound cake and a “regular” cake in texture.

The cake is sturdy enough to stack and frost for a birthday cake and still tender and moist enough to be enjoyable. You can even carve a 1234 cake (although I suggest chilling it–or any cake–first to make it easier to carve.)

1-2-3-4 Cake Formula

I decided to go with a standard 1-2-3-4 cake recipe. Versions of this cake have been around for decades.

This is an old, old recipe. The amounts of the four main  ingredients are easy to remember, making this an excellent cake formula to keep in your head in case you find yourself in Dire Need of Cake with  nary a cookbook or Hinternets to be found. Here’s all you have to remember:

• 1 cup of butter (2 sticks/8 oz)
• 2 cups of sugar (14 oz)
• 3 cups of cake flour or all purpose flour (13-14 oz)
• 4 eggs (about 7 oz)

You’ll also need

• 1 level teaspoon of fine salt
• 3 teaspoons of baking powder (1 teaspoon per cup of flour)
• 1 cup of milk
• enough vanilla or other extract/s to make it taste delicious, probably 2-3 teaspoons of vanilla

Another thing about the batter for this cake: it tastes exactly the way cake batter ice cream wishes it tasted but doesn’t.

If you are a Fan of Batter, make sure you use really fresh eggs, because you will want more than just a Wee Taste.

Tips on Making a 1234 Cake

This recipe makes a Rather Lot of batter.

The original recipe, slightly adapted from Carole Walter’s Great Cakes cookbook calls for this to be baked in a 10″ tube pan.

If you’re going  to  bake layers, you’ll have enough batter to make 2 9″x2″ layers.

Make sure you’re baking in pans with 2″ sides. Those 1 1/2″ jobbies from the grocery store won’t hold it. And if you have any question about whether all the batter will fit into your pans, err on the side of caution and bake a couple of cupcakes, too.

Fill your pans only half full. Trust me. If you do forget and fill them too full, there is help for you. This is the advice I gave folks on facebook yesterday. Behold, it stands the test of time. Because it is still true today.

What Happens if I Have Overfilled My Cake Pans?

You can prevent overflow in the first place by making sure to fill your cake pans only 1/2-2/3 full.

If you overfill them and then realize what you’ve done before you put the cakes in the oven, just scoop some of the batter out until the pans are only full no more than 2/3 of the way.

If, however, your cakes are already in the oven and rising, you really can’t do anything but damage control. Here’s how you do that.

• If your cake batter looks like it’s going to spill over, Do Not Panic. Repeat: Do. Not. Panic.
• Put a cookie sheet under the bottom rack (spray it w/Pam first if you think of it, or line it w/parchment. Don’t worry if you don’t though). This will catch any drips of batter and keep them off your oven floor so they don’t burn.
• Let the cake do its thing and keep telling yourself that the batter in the pan is just fine, because it totally is. Just fine. If the top of the cake starts browning too much, just cover it loosely with a piece of foil and turn the heat down by 25F. Continue baking until the cakes test done.
• Remove from the oven and, using an icing spatula or the back of a knife, trim the overflow off right at the inner edge of the pan. Do this right after you take it out of the oven since the cake will shrink as it cools and you don’t want it to pull away all jaggedy and weird.
• Let the cake cool in the pans for 10-15 minutes and then turn out on racks. Wrap tightly in a couple of layers of plastic wrap and put them in your freezer until cool or even partially frozen.
• Use a serrated knife to trim any crunchy bits off the top (bottom) of your layers, split them if you want, and continue w/icing and decoration.

Pretend the horror never occurred, and pay a neighbor’s kid to clean your oven for you if you forgot to put a drip pan in there.

Have a drink. You’ve earned it. Do NOT let the kid have alcohol unless he can show you proof that he’s over 21.

1234 Cake Variations

There are many ways to switch up your 1 2 3 4 cake recipe. Here are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. I am sure you will think of others.

• Buttermilk cake: substitute 1 cup of buttermilk for the whole milk. Add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda to your dry ingredients.
• Lemon cake: Add zest of 2 lemons to the butter/sugar mixture, substitute 1/2-1 teaspoon of lemon extract for the vanilla.
• Spice cake: Add 2-3 teaspoons of your favorite sweet spice mix (apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice) or a mixture of spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, etc) to the dry ingredients. Consider using buttermilk in place of whole milk (see the buttermilk cake variation)
• Chocolate cake: substitute 1/2-3/4 cup sifted cocoa powder for an equal amount of flour, use 1/2 brown sugar and 1/2 white sugar, and use coffee as the liquid. Add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda to the dry ingredients.

Looking for more old fashioned cake recipes? Give my Butterscotch Cake a try. You won’t be sorry!

A Note on Measurements

The majority of my recipes are written by weight rather than volume, although by its nature, a 1234 cake is designed to be made by volume.

Still, I implore you to buy a scale, both for accuracy and consistency. This is the scale I use, love, and highly recommend:

Enjoy the cake, friends!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a lovely day.