Book Update: I’m halfway through “The Rent Collector” by Camron Wright, and it is a really good story. So far, I would recommend it or try the first chapter out anyway.
Recipe Update: This cake and cake recipe is the result of baking for almost 200 guests for my cousin’s wedding. Half of the cupcakes were white almond sour cream cake topped with an almond vanilla buttercream frosting – a typical wedding cake. The other half of the cupcakes were pumpkin cupcakes topped with a maple buttercream. I know cream cheese would be a classic with pumpkin, but the cupcakes would be at room temperature longer than 2 hours and cream cheese really should be refrigerated just in case.
There are two versions of this cake. One uses a box mix and the other does not. It is up to you which to use. Of course, you don’t have to wait for a wedding to have this cake. We loved eating the trimmings! The cake texture is a dense angel food cake. The crumb is fine. The cake is tender, but will hold for wedding tiers. I would have a photo… but I kept one wedding cupcake aside to photograph and sent the other 250 cupcakes to the wedding. When I came home, someone ate the cupcake.
For white box mixes, I prefer Betty Crocker. For yellow box mixes, I prefer Duncan Hines.
White Almond Sour Cream Wedding Cake
makes 30 cupcakes
1 (18.25 ounces) white cake box mix
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/3 cups water
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (use clear vanilla if you need a pure white colored cake)
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 egg whites
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour (or use Baker’s Joy baking spray) a 9×13 pan, or 2- 8″ or 9″ round pans, or line a muffin pan with 30 cupcakes liners.
2. In a great big bowl, add the dry stuff: cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt. Mix this up in the mixer on low.
3. Add the wet stuff: water, sour cream, oil, extracts and egg whites. Beat until incorporated on low. Now, beat for FOUR minutes.
4. Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes. Bake 8″ rounds for 35 minutes. Bake 9×13 for 40 minutes. Check to make sure a toothpick comes out clean of course. . For cupcakes, cool for 5-10 minutes and remove from the pan to cool on a wire rack. For the rest of the cakes, place parchment side down on a wire rack to cool. I have done it the opposite way and sometimes the cake sticks too much to the rack. You will have to flip the cake onto a plate first, and then flip it back onto a wire rack to get it to sit on the wire rack with the parchment side down.
Recipe: adapted from one I found on Allrecipes.com but the typical WASC cake can be found in many sources
From Scratch- White Almond Sour Cream Wedding Cake
2 – 9×13 pans
5 cups cake flour
3 and 1/3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup milk
1 and 1/3 cups shortening or butter (butter will make the cake a little yellow, but I like the taste better)
16 ounces sour cream
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 egg whites or 5 whole eggs
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a great big bowl, sift the dry stuff: cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add: milk, shortening, sour cream and extracts. Beat 2 minutes.
4. Add egg whites and beat on high 2 minutes.
5. Pour into prepared pans and bake. Cupcakes about 20 minutes. Rounds 35 minutes. 9×13 – 40 minutes.
Almond Buttercream Frosting
frosts 80 cupcakes or 40 cupcakes generously
1 lb. (4 sticks) butter, unsalted and softened
1 lb. and 8 oz. powdered sugar (sift if you need super smooth)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon meringue powder (optional, but I use this for any paid-for cake)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (or clear vanilla)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons teaspoon almond extract
2-4 tablespoons whipping cream, half and half, or milk
1. Beat the butter until lighter in color and fluffy.
2. Turn mixer on low and slowly add the powdered sugar little by little. Make sure most of the sugar is incorporated before adding more.
3. Add salt, meringue powder, vanilla extract and almond extract. Beat until combined.
4. Add 2 tablespoons of cream. Beat and see how stiff the frosting is. For spreadable frosting that still holds a shape, I add about 3-4 tablespoons of cream. Then, beat the frosting like crazy. It will become almost white.
5. Store in an airtight container until ready to use. Keep at room temperature up to two days. Keep in the refrigerator until the expiration on the butter expires. Keep in the freezer up to one month.
[…] Almond Buttercream […]
Is there any way you can convert the measurements to weights? I would like to use a food scale to get the exact results.
Hi! I find this chart extremely helpful when doing my conversions. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipe/master-weight-chart.html
Here are the weights for the cake:
5 cups cake flour = 20 ounces
3.33 cups sugar = 23.3 ounces
1 and 1/3 cups butter = 9.33 ounces
sour cream already given in ounces
Hope this helps! Have a great day!
[…] This was an interesting cake to make in that I pulled it together using cakes from two different websites, which didn’t exactly yield even cakes (the vanilla layers turned out way thicker). Despite that, my coworkers said this was the most fantastical cake I’ve ever made. The resounding consensus was that it would be perfect for a wedding. For the chocolate cake I used the recipe found on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa container. For the white cake, I looked to Whisk Together. […]
Glad they liked it! Hershey’s Perfect Chocolate cake is also a good one. I have made that as well – so moist!
Brandon Colker
White Almond Sour Cream Wedding Cake
Why do most recipes using box mix call for 18.25 oz when they are. 15.5oz in the New Jersey supermarkets? I am afraid to add extra flour to lose flavor. Help
The cake mix companies decided a few years ago to #1 raise the prices on their mixes or #2 reduce the contents. They chose #2. This is really unfortunate because like you have noticed, most of the recipes we have are for the 18.25 oz. box that they carried for over 10 years. Now that it is 16 ounces, you cannot make 24 cupcakes, you have to make 20. You can make a 9×13 cake, but it won’t be as large or feed as many people. I notice it more when making cupcakes.
For this recipe, just follow as stated. Instead of getting 30 cupcakes you will get about 26.
The mixing method for this is different than any other cake recipe I’ve seen. Is there a reason for mixing it this way? Usually you cream butter or shortening with sugar then add extracts and eggs, then alternate mixing in flour with milk. I guess I’m worried the butter( which I assume should be softened even though it doesn’t say so) will not get mixed in properly. Plus doesn’t creaming the butter and sugar together give the cake the airy texture?
Yes, it does. If I were to make this one again, I would cream the butter. Add the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and then alternate the milk and flour mixture always starting and ending with the flour mixture. I will have to update the directions because I prefer that way too. The above recipe though does work because of so much leavening from the baking powder.
Thank you so much for the quick response. I will use the traditional method then. I’m making a huge bday cake soon and want to test this recipe out. It sounds delicious! I have an almond cake recipe that uses almond paste and it’s delicious but the texture is more like a pound cake. Wish I could find a recipe that uses almond paste but has a layer cake texture.