Dawn's Divine Delights: White Cake with Lemony Buttercream

Spring is in the air! I love everything about spring.... well, except for the allergies. Everything else, totally love.

I needed to make a spring cake! No reason. I just needed a cheery cake on my table.
I have seen alot of rainbow themed treats floating around because of St. Patrick's day and such, which made me have rainbows on my mind.
Spring, rainbows, flowers and green... that is what's on my mind.

Here are my spring inspired flower thoughts!

Here is where the rainbow inspired thoughts came in.

Don't worry, the green thoughts are coming... let's talk white cake.
I usually make my white cake from a mix *gasp* , but I have been searching for a worthy homemade recipe. I normally use a box because homemade white cakes tend to be dry and not fluffy.
I think my search is over or at least I am super close. It is from iambaker.net, she is very talented, go on over and check her blog out. I slightly changed her white cake, but only with the flavoring.

Here is what you will need:

2 large eggs separated

1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour

2 tsps baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup room temperature butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Separate the eggs, placing the whites into one container and the yolks into another. Let come to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line your cake pans. I used 3 8inch pans.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until soft and creamy, about 1 minute. Add 3/4 cup of sugar (reserving the rest) and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Now add egg yolks, one at a time, until completely incorporated. Add vanilla until combined, about 30 seconds.

Now you are going to add your flour mixture and milk. Starting with the flour, add 1/3 of the mixture and mix until incorporated. Now add 1/2 milk mixture, mix until combined. Add half the remaining flour, combine. Now add the rest of your milk and combine. Add remaining 1/3 of your flour mixture, (always start and end with the flour mix) and go ahead and mix until combined. This whole process should take less then 2 minutes, it is important, you do not want to over beat the batter.

In a separate clean bowl with clean whisk attachment, whip eggs whites until foamy then add the cream of tartar. (I did this on medium speed) Beat until soft peaks occur, and then gradually add in your remaining sugar. The picture above is almost there.

You will want stiff peaks, which took me about 3 minutes. Picture above is the right stiffness. Now, take your rubber spatula and fold your eggs whites into your cake batter. Make sure they are fully incorporated, but do not over stir the batter, as you do not want to eggs to deflate.

Here is where green thoughts came in. My son loves green and with St. Patty's day around the corner... I thought...why not. He was thrilled!

Put batter into prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes.

My cake took 15-20 minutes. Maybe it was the green.

I filled it with strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream (which we will not discuss, I am still mastering that, haven't quite made it properly yet) and covered it with my favorite

Lemony Buttercream. Recipe to follow.