By Melissa Clark, The New York Times
When James Beard published his family’s recipe for 1-2-3-4 cake in Woman’s Day magazine in the mid-1960s, he never expected the deluge of complaint letters that followed.
The recipe for the tender-crumbed vanilla layer cake, was straightforward enough: 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour and four large eggs. But Beard’s mother, as he wrote when he reprinted the recipe in “American Cookery” in 1972, went a little rogue, scanting the flour down to 2-3/4 cups. Beard’s readers were not amused that she had changed the time-honored recipe. Even though lodging a complaint meant finding an envelope, a stamp and actually mailing a letter (as opposed to the click-send of today), people took pains to make their indignation known.
Here’s the thing, though: Beard’s mother was just doing what savvy cooks have always done. Recipes with proportion names — like pound cake, which dates back to the 18th century — are really more like guidelines. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone today making pound cake with exactly a pound each of butter, eggs, flour and sugar. The name is a helpful mnemonic, but bakers have been tinkering with the formula for generations. Beard himself added extra flour and a couple of tablespoons of liquid (rum, brandy or orange juice) to his pound cake recipe. And even Fannie Farmer bumped up the sugar for a beautifully crisp and golden top.
I kept all of this in mind when I set out to adapt my own version of the classic 1-2-3-4 cake. Like Beard, I cut back on the flour to get a light and fluffy crumb. I also dialed down the sugar — this was going to be a layer cake with a mocha buttercream frosting, and I didn’t want it veering into cloying territory.
Then I got to the butter. While I kept the total fat at one cup, I swapped in some neutral oil, which makes the crumb incredibly moist (oil always does this to cakes).
Although it’s not reflected in the name, all 1-2-3-4 cake recipes include a cup of milk, and that I traded for buttermilk because I love its subtle tang. Really, the only thing I didn’t mess with were the eggs. Four of them, as the name promises, work perfectly.
In the end, all of this tweaking raises the question: Can I still call this a 1-2-3-4 cake? Probably not, at least technically speaking. But “1-1.5-2.75-4 cake” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. If you want to send me a strongly worded message about it, go ahead — at least you won’t need a stamp.
RECIPE: 1-2-3-4 Cake With Mocha Buttercream
The name of this delightful vanilla layer cake comes from the measure of ingredients in the batter — 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour and four large eggs. But, like its buttery sister, the pound cake (a pound of each butter, sugar, flour eggs), a little fine tuning goes a long way to yield the most tender, delicate-crumbed cake. Using a combination of butter and oil makes the cake layers moist, and reducing the sugar slightly keeps them from becoming cloying. Feel free to substitute any other frosting for the mocha buttercream: Cream cheese frosting, lemon buttercream and chocolate ganache are excellent on this adaptable cake.
By Melissa Clark
Yield: 12 to 16 servings
Total time: 1 hour, plus at least 2 hours’ cooling
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for the pans, at room temperature
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 4 tablespoons neutral oil, such as avocado, grapeseed or sunflower
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 3/4 cups/345 grams cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups/300 grams granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt (thinned down with a little milk or water if using Greek yogurt), at room temperature
For the buttercream:
- 3 sticks/337 grams (11/2 cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 pound/455 grams (33/4 cups) powdered sugar
- 5 tablespoons/25 grams unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 2 ounces chopped unsweetened chocolate, melted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream or buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (decaffeinated instant coffee also works well)
Preparation
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees, butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and vanilla.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer set with the paddle, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat in butter until the mixture looks like crumbs. Use a flexible spatula to scrape down the sides.
4. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the buttermilk, mixing until smooth and combined. Beat in half the egg mixture, then scrape down the sides of the bowl with a flexible spatula. Add the remaining egg mixture and beat until fluffy, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.
5. Divide batter in the prepared cake pans, then tap them on the counter to get rid of air bubbles.
6. Bake until the top is lightly golden and the center bounces back when lightly touched with a finger, 25 to 30 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the center will come out with some crumbs attached, but it shouldn’t be wet. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
7. Meanwhile, make the buttercream: In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter, powdered sugar and cocoa powder until smooth and creamy.
8. Beat in melted chocolate, vanilla and salt. In a microwaveable measuring cup, heat cream to steaming in the microwave (just 15 or 20 seconds). With a fork, whisk in instant espresso powder, and beat into buttercream. Use right away or transfer to an airtight container.
9. To assemble the cake, dollop frosting on top of one cake layer, spread it to the edges, and top with the second cake layer. Dollop and smooth frosting on the top and sides. You may have frosting left over. It will freeze for up to 6 months.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.