First time Baked a cake in Dhaka and it's the best Yellow Cake!

Woohoo so, I got to bake a cake two days ago for the first time in Dhaka! It was a long wait...I'd to get a new oven, getting ingredients one at a time (cause we could never remember to get everything at one trip to store!) etc etc etc... I'm happy to get into baking as I've plenty of recipes to try (thank you pinterest!).

So, of course first try was THE Yellow Cake that I baked few months ago in New York. It was a hit then. And I hoped it to be another hit here again. While I started to get things together, I realized there was a little hurdle I needed to get over. Measurement conversion! eek. My recipe calls for oven to be heated at 350 degree Fahrenheit, my oven has temp in Celsius... then, recipe calls for 1/2 cup of softened butter...and the pack of butter I had was a pack of 200 grams...so how do I measure it just right? Of course, like everything else google came in handy! What can't you find on Google? Seriously.

So, it  turned out 1 cup of butter is somewhere between 225 to 250 grams of butter. And remember, my pack is of 200 grams. So, when using 1/2 cup of butter, I just eye balled it and cut it in half chunk. It's obviously not perfect but it worked out. I know, I could have just easily soften the butter completely, and then take 1/2 cup...but even that I think can be totally off depending on how soft the butter is and how much I can squeeze into that cup.

And as for how much Celsius is 350 degree Fahrenheit? Apparently 176.something. And my oven can't do that 176.something...it can do 175. huh! And really who bakes at such a odd # of temp?

But anyway....now the pan....I didn't have two 8 inch pans as the recipe calls for. Instead I had a 12 mini cupcake pan, 1 9 inch pan. So, I baked 12 mini cupcake, 3 really thin 9 inch cakes....

And the verdict? It was GOOD and GONE!!I didn't use any frosting this time around, but first time when I baked I did make the cream cheese frosting and it was SOOOO GOOD!! One thing I changed this time was I used 1/2 tea spoon of salt instead of full 1 tea spoon, as I knew I wasn't gonna use frost. Without frosting, 1 teaspoon of salt would make it terribly salty FYI.

And here is the pic that I took next day...please don't let my bad pic fool you (this pic doesn't do justice!)....it's yummy.

And here is the link to the original blog with the beautiful pic of this cake how it should really look if baked on 2 pans (rather than three and mini-cup cakes!)

Recipe from the Original Blog

Old-Fashioned Yellow Cake

(adapted from McCall’s Book of Cakes and Pies)

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 + 1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup or 100 grams butter, softened

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/175 degree Celsius. Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans.
2. In a large mixing bowl sift flour and sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. Add butter, milk and vanilla. Beat with a hand mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, occasionally scraping sides of bowl.
4. Add eggs, beat for 2 more minutes.
5. Pour batter into prepared pans, dividing equally among both. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Turn out and cool thoroughly on wire racks. Frost with cream cheese or whip cream frosting. If using whip cream frosting the cake must be refrigerated.