Hi friends! Just stopping by with a cutie pie fluffy pink, white, and gold cake for the sweetest new earthling, baby Georgia! My best friend Olivia’s sister Ava had the most beautiful little girl a few weeks ago and I was just so excited, so I made a birthday cake to celebrate. It matches the colors in her nursery and that makes me happy. Imperfect frosting and meringue kisses but for my first themed cake I’ve learned a few things:

• I am a very unskilled cake leveler/froster and I’m also now leaning towards never frosting the sides of cakes again….naked cakes forever!

• Meringue kisses are very easy and quick, but I made WAY too much, there are 100 more meringue kisses hanging out on my kitchen table.

• Adding colors are so fun!! I’m trying to find a good natural food coloring brand, if you know of any please comment or let me know somehow! I’ve heard great things about India Tree as well but their options are limited.

• When in doubt of your piping abilities, pipe a meringue letter a few times! I added a cursive “G” on top for Georgia and practiced like 12 times before I got it right. Next step: live piping with real life icing! Yikes. Send positive vibes pls.

Ok have a good week friends!!!

- Marina

vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream + meringue kisses

makes one 2-layer 8-inch cake

*cake + frosting recipes from molly yeh! meringue kisses directions here

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment.

In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients except for the boiling water. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then stir in the boiling water.

Pour the thin batter into cake pans and bake until the tops are lightly browned, about 28 - 30 minutes.

Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then turn onto a cooling rack.

To make the frosting: 

In a standing mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth and gradually beat in the powdered sugar. Add the salt, vanilla and almond extracts, and milk and beat to combine.

Frost the cake as desired.

Add meringue kisses and enjoy!

Ingredients

for the cake:

1 3/4 c sugar

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp each: baking soda, baking powder, kosher salt

2 large eggs

1 c buttermilk

1/2 c flavorless oil, like canola

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 c boiling water

For the frosting:

1 3/4 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 1/2 c powdered sugar

1/8 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp clear imitation vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

2 tb whole milk

Print this recipe!