The seventeenth and eighteenth recipes that I made from Bake! by Nick Malgieri were Golden Sour Cream Layers, found on page 125, and Perfect Meringue Buttercream (Chocolate), found on page 156.
This was Phyl's pick for the group as his week fell on his birthday and a nice birthday cake seemed like a good choice for the week. Mark also had a birthday at this time so we were very happy to have a birthday cake for him as well with this recipe.
The ingredient list for the Golden Sour Cream Layers cake (page 125): flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla.
The ingredient list for the Perfect Meringue Buttercream (Chocolate) icing (page156): egg whites, salt, sugar, butter, chocolate, milk, and vanilla.
The cake was easy to bake, goes together quickly, and bakes up moist and lovely nicely. I made a quarter of the recipe as birthday or not, cake is not a real favorite with the guys. A quarter of the recipe baked in one 6" cake pan. After it cooled, I sliced it so that I would have two layers and this worked just great to give it that birthday cake look. 
I think I must have done something wrong with the buttercream icing as I could not get it to thicken up properly. I went over it in my mind trying to figure/reason it out but I just could not come up with what I had done wrong, so the mystery remains. Abby also had problems with the consistency of the buttercream, but Margaret made the vanilla version and it turned out perfectly. I have a feeling it might have been that melted chocolate and milk which made it too thin and impossible to spread. I parked it in the refrigerator for several hours and still it did not tighten up so that I could spread it to frost the cake. Not wanting to waste the ingredients, I started adding powdered sugar to it until it got firm enough to spread like frosting. (Still, it was rather loose as you can see in the photos.) The cake piece had to be on its side so that the top layer would not slide off the bottom layer. Need to try this again, to be sure, but first I will make the vanilla version without the added chocolate to see how that works and what the icing should feel/look like.
Despite the minor icing glitch, the guys enjoyed the cake, thought it tasted good, and that it was a fine choice for a birthday cake, and then let me hand out the extra pieces to visitors as cake is just not a repeat thing around here...good for one slice and then they like to wait another month or two before having the next slice. If this were a pie, it would be gone within 24 hours, that's just how things roll.
Thanks for the birthday pick, Phyl, heard your birthday was wonderful with lots of family to help celebrate! I leave you with a rather goofy photo of the guys getting ready to enjoy the cake...oh, well, goofy is often endearing, right? No candles as it would have left far too many holes in the cake when we pulled them out...lol!
I think I must have done something wrong with the buttercream icing as I could not get it to thicken up properly. I went over it in my mind trying to figure/reason it out but I just could not come up with what I had done wrong, so the mystery remains. Abby also had problems with the consistency of the buttercream, but Margaret made the vanilla version and it turned out perfectly. I have a feeling it might have been that melted chocolate and milk which made it too thin and impossible to spread. I parked it in the refrigerator for several hours and still it did not tighten up so that I could spread it to frost the cake. Not wanting to waste the ingredients, I started adding powdered sugar to it until it got firm enough to spread like frosting. (Still, it was rather loose as you can see in the photos.) The cake piece had to be on its side so that the top layer would not slide off the bottom layer. Need to try this again, to be sure, but first I will make the vanilla version without the added chocolate to see how that works and what the icing should feel/look like.
Despite the minor icing glitch, the guys enjoyed the cake, thought it tasted good, and that it was a fine choice for a birthday cake, and then let me hand out the extra pieces to visitors as cake is just not a repeat thing around here...good for one slice and then they like to wait another month or two before having the next slice. If this were a pie, it would be gone within 24 hours, that's just how things roll.
Thanks for the birthday pick, Phyl, heard your birthday was wonderful with lots of family to help celebrate! I leave you with a rather goofy photo of the guys getting ready to enjoy the cake...oh, well, goofy is often endearing, right? No candles as it would have left far too many holes in the cake when we pulled them out...lol!
Get the book and Bake! with us, we will even let you choose recipes in rotation with us, yes, we will!