By Ingrid Beer, THE COZY APRON
The winter season holds a particularly soft spot in my heart.
Yield: Serves 12
Ingredients:
- 2 ¾ cups cake flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ cup organic eggnog (not low fat)
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon clear vanilla extract (regular is fine, too; however, the cake will not be quite as white)
- 4 jumbo egg whites, room temp
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temp
- 1 ¾ cup granulated sugar
- Fluffy Eggnog Frosting (recipe below)
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 350°, and line three, 8” cake pans with parchment and mist with cooking spray.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg into a bowl, and set these dry ingredients aside.
- Whisk together the eggnog, buttermilk and vanilla in a large cup, and set these wet ingredients aside.
- Add the butter to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, and cream the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes; then, add in 1 ½ cups of the granulated sugar, and continue to cream until the two are fluffy, about another 2 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed.
- With the mixer on low, add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar mixture, and once that is incorporated, add in half of the wet ingredients, allowing that to fully incorporate; repeat the process with another 1/3 of the dry, and then the rest of the wet, finishing with the dry ingredients.
- In a medium-size bowl, whip the egg whites until foamy using a hand-held electric mixer; then, while whipping, sprinkle or “rain” in the remaining ¼ cup of the granulated sugar, and continue whipping until the whites form glossy, stiff peaks, about 5-7 minutes.
- Using a spatula, gently fold the whipped egg whites into the batter taking care not to deflate them too much—you just want the batter well blended.
- Divide the batter equally into your prepared cake pans, and bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
- Allow the cakes to cool in their pans for 10 minutes, then carefully turn them out and allow them to completely cool on wire racks before frosting and decorating.
Fluffy Eggnog Frosting Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened at room temp
- 5 ½ – 5 ¾ cups powdered sugar, sifted
- ¼ cup eggnog, room temp
- 1 tablespoon clear vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon, heaping, ground nutmeg
Preparation:
- Add the butter to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, and cream until fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.
- With the mixer on low, begin adding about a cup of the sugar at a time, alternating with a drizzle of eggnog, allowing the mixture to blend until fluffy.
- Finish with the vanilla and the nutmeg, and mix until those are well incorporated; use immediately, or keep covered in fridge, at which point you can then re-mix the frosting (if it’s stiff) to make it fluffy once again.
