Been scanning this thread but a question popped into my mind.  Does it matter the type of butter you use? I think they do vary…. Just curious…

Pat, as far as I know, in the USA butter is pretty standardized at 80% butterfat. The “Euro” style butters have a bit more, 83% or sometimes even a bit more. Rose’s recipes are all for USA standard unsalted butter, as far as I recall.

I do find weighing the flour to be very important in making Rose’s cake recipes. And, using the type of flour she specifies.

Also, if you live in a very humid climate, both your flour and sugar can absorb a lot of moisture from the air. This will throw off your weight measurements. There have been some posts about this on other threads on the forum.

I’m not sure how old this thread is, but here goes: I too have made the Downy Yellow Butter cake…the first time I did it, was HEAVEN! And the second time, somehow the batter ‘grabbed’ the sides of the cupcake liners, and I had a dense ‘short’ cake….still good, but a bit ‘squatty body’ if you know what I mean. After that, I made sure to ‘bang’ (tap is a bit understated) the pan on the table to be sure air bubbles are out and batter drops to the bottom of the cups. Works for me.

Anyway, since then I must’ve seen where I was not sifting the flour first….so did that. Perfect 300 grams of sifted cake flour. Then I had a ‘puffy cookie-thing’ going on in the oven….puffy and drooping all over the pan. Took them out…tasted wonderful, but no structure. Now, I’ve learned to weigh, have a good scale and have changed the battery; have learned ‘sifted flour’ versus ‘flour, sifted’....but for me, when I do the ‘sifted flour’ with this recipe, it’s a structural disaster. As I had nothing to lose, I added a cup more of flour to the batter (spoon method) and rebeat for 1 minute. It salvaged what otherwise would have been a lot of wasted ingredients.

So, my question is, ‘why’, if I did as per instructions ‘sifted cake flour’ to 300 grams, did it blow up and fall apart??? I can only assume that the first time I made the cupcakes with this recipe, I measured or weighed, then sifted, and used all of the flour I measured/weighed. Temp in oven is fine…have thermometer. Ingredients at room temp…follow recipe meticulously (with exception of first time, probably sifting after weighing out).

The recipe doesn’t work for me if I measure out the ‘sifted’ flour….it’s not enough flour to hold the structure of the cupcakes.

Am I living on the moon, or does anyone else have this problem??

Not sure I have the magic answer, but if you are weighing the flour you don’t have to sift at all for a butter cake (according to Rose).

It sounds like you are not getting enough flour when you sift into the cup, but I’m not sure why that would be… ?

I sort of had the same problem, except with the sour cream yellow cake.  I made them in cupcakes, instead of a cake…they rose just to the top, were nice and flat, but were really dry.  I weighed the ingredients, and the oven temp has been checked, so that isn’t the problem, and I don’t think I’m overbaking them, but maybe I am? Generally, I find straight butter cakes a little on the dry side…

For those of you who have added a couple tablespoons of oil to help with moisture, do you subtract out any of the butter? If so, did you add any additional liquid? Do you just add the oil with the liquid ingredients or do you add to the butter?

Cupcakes, because of their large surface area, dry out quickly- consider raising baking temp slightly and shortening baking time, removing them when internal temp hits 190F.  I’ve had great success with the sour cream butter cake as cupcakes, they turn out fluffy, velvety and a little rounded.  Be sure to keep them well covered until eating time.