Eggless Vanilla Cake for Wilton Course 1-Day 2

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 4/ Day 5
Theme: Miscellaneous - Wilton Decorating Course 1 - Day 2
Dish - Eggless Vanilla Cake with Wilton Butter-cream frosting
Wilton decorating course is a once a week 2 hour class for a total of 4 classes. For the second class, we were required to bring a 8" cake and 2 recipes of butter-cream frosting ready to use in the class. This class focused on torting (slicing a cake into layers) and leveling a cake, frosting and then transferring a design on to it. Again we were asked to buy quite a few tools to do this. Since I'm planning to make more cakes, I bought everything they had in the list, like this cake leveler, turntable and cake lifter. Fancy stuff, eh?? Good thing was I had a 25% off store coupon which saved me quite a bit.   What I learnt was to always use thin consistency icing for frosting the cake and it's not as easy as it looks (at least that's what I think). We also learnt some piping techniques, like curving lines, zigzags and filling in. I made an eggless vanilla cake and I think this will be my go-to vanilla going forward. I saw the recipe on Sharmi's blog and than Suma made it too, so I went ahead and made it for the class. It is a fluffy and moist cake that stands up to the frosting. Double the ingredients and make 2 cakes if taking to the decorating class. Eggless Vanilla Cake using Yogurt: Ingredients: All-purpose flour - 1½cup Baking powder - 1¼tsp Baking soda - ½tsp Salt - ¼tsp Sugar - ¾cup Yogurt - 1 cup, at room temperature Oil - ½cup (I used canola oil, but any neutral flavored oil will work) Vanilla extract - 1tsp
Method:

• Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a 8" baking pan.
• In a large bowl, combine yogurt, sugar, baking soda and baking powder. Let it sit for 3-4 minutes until the mixture gets very frothy. Make sure that the bowl is big enough to hold at least twice the volume.
• Sift all-purpose flour and salt. 
• Add flour mixture, oil and vanilla extract to the yogurt mixture and mix until combined. 
• Pour into the prepared pan. Reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester/ toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then gently remove onto a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.

Wilton's Butter-Cream Frosting:
Our instructor gave us a frosting recipe that is easy to remember and make.
Ingredients:
Salted Water:
Water - 16oz.
Salt - 1tsp
For the Frosting:
Solid White Shortening - 1cup
Confectioners Sugar - 4cups (1 lb)
Meringue Powder - 1tbsp
Vanilla extract - 1tsp (use colorless extract to keep the frosting really white)
Salted Water - 7tsp
Method:

• For the Salted Water: Combine water and salt in a reusable water bottle and use this water to thin the icing.
• For the Frosting: Cream shortening until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes with a hand or stand mixer.
• Next add confectioners sugar, meringue powder, vanilla extract and salted water. Beat the mixture until everything is combined. Scrape down the sides to incorporate everything, then beat for 7-10 minutes on low speed for a airy, fluffy frosting. This makes 2½cups of Stiff Frosting.
• To make this into Medium Consistency frosting (used for borders, flowers with petals that lie flat), add 1tsp salted water to each cup of stiff consistency icing (or 2½tsp of salted water for the full recipe). Mix well until blended.
• To make Thin consistency frosting (used for writing and printing, leaves, icing a cake), add 2tsp salted water to each cup of stiff consistency icing (or 5tsp of salted water for the full recipe). Mix well until blended.
• Store the frosting in the fridge, but remove and bring it room temperature when ready to frost.

Champa @ Versatile Kitchen has an extensive section on Wilton's courses on her blog. Check them out here for more in depth information on the classes. Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 27.