High Altitude Vanilla Buttermilk Birthday Cake
An incredibly light and fluffy white buttermilk cake that makes the perfect birthday cake or cake for any occasion.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- 8-inch cake pans (x3)
- 12-Inch Disposable Piping Bags (plus tip 1M, a coupler, and tip 18)
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 6 egg whites, room temperature
- 2 ½ cups whole buttermilk, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 3 ¼ cups cake flour, fluffed, spooned, and leveled
- 3 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
Buttercream
- 2 cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp meringue powder (optional)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2-4 tbsp milk or cream, if needed
- gel food coloring (pink and turquoise)
- sprinkles
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Spray the bottoms of three 8-inch cake pans with non-stick spray, and line the pans with circles of parchment paper.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla bean on medium speed (#6 on a Kitchen Aid stand mixer) for 10 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally.
- Beat in the egg whites, one at a time, beating each for 10 seconds before adding the next. Scrape the bowl down and beat for 10 more seconds.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
- With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour. Use a spatula to scrape the bowl well and incorporate any stray bits of flour.
- Divide the batter between the pans. Bake on the center oven rack for about 25-30 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.
- Set the pans on a wire rack, cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar, meringue powder and salt and mix until combined.
- Add the vanilla and milk, increase the speed to medium high and whip for 4-5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally, until very light and fluffy.
- Remove the cooled cakes from the pans. Fill, stack and frost the cake with the buttercream, scraping the sides smooth to seal the crumbs in with a "crumb coat". Refrigerate the cake for 15 minutes.
- Reserve 1/2 cup of the buttercream, and color it with turquoise gel food coloring. Color the remaining buttercream with a few drops of pink gel food coloring.
- Frost the cake all over with the pink buttercream, making it as smooth as you like. Before the buttercream crusts over, add sprinkles.
- For the border around the bottom, pipe a small "shell" border with tip 18 and the turquoise buttercream. For the top, use tip 1M, and pipe little drop flowers with the turquoise buttercream. Insert birthday candles into the flowers on top.
Notes
- It’s important for the egg whites, buttermilk and butter to be at room temperature.
- Cake flour is best in this cake. It makes a much lighter cake than all-purpose flour does. Be sure to sift the cake flour after measuring.
- If you’re not able to get buttermilk, you can make your own sour milk. For every 1 cup of buttermilk, combine 1 cup whole milk with 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar, and let sit for a few minutes to curdle.
- Leftover cake should be stored in an airtight container or cake carrier for up to 3 days.
- If you don’t have three 8-inch pans, you can use two 9-inch pans instead. This is too much cake batter to only use two 8-inch pans.
- You can also divide the batter between six 6-inch round cake pans, to make two smaller layer cakes.
- Add 1 tsp almond extract to the cake batter and the buttercream for a classic “wedding cake” flavor.
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