White Cake with Raspberry Filling

Yummy!

My sweet son found this recipe and wanted to make it for me; if you've read my blog about the Hershey's chocolate cake, you'll understand the humor in it! Normally, I would take a recipe like this and try to cut the butter and sugar. But this was the first cake he made on his own and we wanted to follow the recipe to a "T". It was delicious!


2-1/4 cups plain cake flour
1 cup milk, room temperature
6 large egg whites, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1-3/4 cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut in small pieces


Heat oven to 350. Grease two 9" cake pans, cover bottom with a circle of wax paper, grease and flour and set aside. Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts in a big measuring cup and mix with a fork until blended. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and beat until mixture resembles small crumbs (you can also use a pastry blender for this). Add all but 1/2 cup milk mixture and beat on high speed for 1-2 minutes. Now add remaining 1/2 cup milk mixture and beat for 30 seconds. Scrape the sides of bowl and beat for 20 seconds. Pour batter evenly into 2 pans. Bake for 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 3 minutes in pan, then turn onto racks. Cool completely.
Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Add the powdered sugar, salt, milk and vanilla and beat until creamy.
To assemble the cake, frost as you would a normal cake. For the filling, you can spread a layer of raspberry fruit spread (nothing too sweet like jam), or just frost and place fresh raspberries in between layers. I like the little bit of tartness you get from fresh raspberries to counter the sweetness.