This is a guest post of seven-year-old Arav, who took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to apprentice with his mom and learn WordPress. When he’s not making cake, you can probably find him playing soccer, listening to Zayde Wolf, fishing, or talking about fishing.
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The Best Cake
This is my favorite cake recipe. It was my great-grandmother’s recipe and my Nana makes it, too. Everyone calls it “Nana’s White Cake,” because as you can see, it’s vanilla and vanilla frosting. I hate chocolate, so I love this cake.
From the photo below, you can see that all Nana’s grandkids love it, too. They can’t even wait for us to sing ‘Happy Birthday!” before stealing a taste with their fingers:
But the funny thing is, even though I call it “Nana’s White Cake,” I’ve never make it white like the photo! Instead, I like to add food coloring every time I make it, and sometimes my mom and I make it into fancy shapes.
When it’s my birthday, my mom helps me make a cake in the shape of something I like. I’ve had basketball-shaped cupcakes, a banjo, a race car stadium with race car twinkies, an airplane with a French flag, and a soccer ball. My sister has had a rainbow fish, two different candy mandalas. Scroll down for all the photos from different times we made it!
music
Birthday Music
You can listen to The Beatles’ Birthday song to set the mood.
recipe
Nana’s White Cake
Nana’s White “Hot Milk” Cake
Equipment
- Funnel pan (or 2 x 9-inch round pans, or cupcake molds, or whatever cake pan(s) you like!)
- Parchment or waxed paper to line funnel or round pans; cup cake liners if not using silicone moulds.
- Electric mixer makes easy work of this.
Ingredients
Cake
- 6 tbsp margarine, chunked (plus a tad more for greasing the pan) butter works, too
- 1 cup whole milk
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 1 rounded tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla
- food coloring optional
Frosting
- 1 tbsp butter, softened
- 1 tbsp whole milk
- 1/4 tsp vanila
- 1 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
- food coloring optional
- 1/4 tsp almond or orange extract optional
Instructions
Make the Cake
- Prepare the mold: If using a funnel pan or round pan(s), cut the parchment or waxed paper to fit the bottom, then grease the sides of the pan and corners next to paper. Or put papers into muffin tins. Or just arrange silicone mini muffin molds on a cookie sheet.
- Heat the milk: In a small pot, over medium low heat, melt the butter into the milk, stirring often and careful not to scorch the milk! Turn off the heat as soon as it melts, and keep it aside.
- Meanwhile, make the batter: Beat eggs on high until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and combine. Slowly add sugar, continuing to beat until smooth. Slowly add 2 cups of flour and the baking powder, beating until smooth. If using food coloring, add it now, recognizing that the milk/butter will lighten and yellow your color a bit.With mixer below medium, give milk/butter mixture a stir then slowly add it into the rest of the batter. The original recipe would have us cooking it right away but we often put it in the fridge at this point. It also freezes perfectly, just thaw it in the fridge for a few hours and you are ready to bake it.
- Bake it!: Preheat oven to 320. Bake in center of oven until top is just barely golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Use times below as a guideline, but check often as ovens and altitudes vary!* Funnel pan: ~45 minutes (the traditional way)* 9-inch round pan: ~30 minutes* Quarter sheet pan: ~25 minutes* Mini-cupcakes: ~12 minutes* Twinkie pan: ~16 minutes
Frosting
- The ingredient list above makes enough frosting for the funnel cake, but we often make 2 or 3 times the recipe. Here are some guidelines. * Mostly just the top of the funnel pan (traditionally): 1x* 9-inch round pan: 1.5x* 2×9-inch round pans with frosting in the middle: 3x* Quarter sheet pan: 1.5xLeave the butter out to soften while you make the cake. If it is not very soft, carefully soften in the microwave, careful NOT to melt it!When you know how much frosting you need, do your math for the ingredients, and leave your butter to soften on the counter! When your cake is cooled and you are ready to frost it, then it is time to make the frosting. Simply mix all of the ingredients all by-hand, or in a mixer. Once mixed, add milk or sugar to get desired consistency. If you are doing multiple colors, make the frosting white, then divide and add food coloring per your need.
Notes
- Bonus! batter can be frozen and thawed out to cook another time. Then you can make mini cupcakes on demand.
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Decorating
On her ninth birthday, I helped my sister decorate her birthday cake. We made a mandala using lots of candy!!!
Here are some more of our favorite cakes using this cake recipe.
