Whenever I need to relieve stress I love to bake. I think the idea of following instructions, mixing, and measuring is soothing and fun for me. Today AP scores were being released and I decided to channel that nervous energy into making a cake!

I’ve made a plethora of cakes before in my past, but I always have struggled with finding a good vanilla cake recipe (I’m a pro at chocolate cake). The past week I researched different cake baking methods and came across a vanilla cake recipe that uses the reverse creaming method. The reverse creaming method is when dry ingredients are mixed together with softened butter. This creates a soft, sand-like crumb mixture. Gluten in flour develops only when the flour comes in contact with water (from the wet ingredients such as milk, egg whites, creams, yogurts, flavoring), so by using this method you minimize gluten getting developed. As a result, you get a softer, lighter, and finer crumb cake! You can see in the slice I have cut that the layers stay intact, this is due to the finer crumbs keeping the cake from falling apart. To the vanilla cake I decided to add lemon zest and lemon juice to freshen up the flavors. :)

For frosting I was debating between buttercream, italian meringue, and just whipped cream. I ended up going with whipped cream due to its convenience and lightness. For the sides I also dyed it pink to contrast the yellow look. I think it turned out fine, but it did make the cake resemble a pink lemonade type of dessert. Because of that, I added sliced strawberries on the bottom to add that “pinkness” flavor.

On top I drizzled a homemade white chocolate ganache, which I dyed yellow to mimic the look of lemon curd. I did this only because we ran out of lemons, but to my surprise it tasted like lemons! I think the texture, color, and aromas from the cake tricked my brain into thinking I was eating lemon curd.

In the end I not only relieved my nerves, but I also got a lovely cake that my brother and parents really enjoyed! And when I checked my AP scores I found out I got pretty good numbers! If you are looking for a good vanilla cake recipe click here!