White Almond Wedding Cake

I have always wanted to find an awesome recipe for white cake. White cake with white buttercream is my favorite kind of cake. I have tried sooo many white cake recipes. So many. And I've experienced many disappointing results. Although the base of this recipe is a cake mix, it's definitely the closest I've come to my idea of a perfect white cake. I will have to accept the fact that it's not totally from scratch. The way I look at it is - this recipe incorporates the good things about the cake mix (tenderness & additives that keep it from going stale quickly) but has the wonderful flavor & texture of a scratch cake. When I read the reviews from folks who had made this recipe (on allrecipes.com), some commented that it tasted artificial, or like a store bought cake, or like a cake mix. I happen to like the taste of some cake mixes and I certainly like the tenderness of cake mix cakes so I did not have a problem with the flavor of this cake. If you are thinking that you will save time making this, you would be wrong. It takes just as much time as making a scratch cake. I made a double recipe, therefore I had to separate 8 eggs and it has a lot of other ingredients that the back of the box doesn't include. A double recipe makes a perfect four 9 inch layers. I did not want such a strong almond flavor so I used a lot less almond & doubled the vanilla. I bet it would have been wonderful if I would have used a vanilla bean or two in the batter. But the end result of this cake it a perfectly moist, tender, not too dense, fine crumbed & flavorful perfectly white cake. I was sure to use only egg whites (but a little bit of one egg yolk slipped into the batter) and I made sure to use CLEAR vanilla extract. I wanted a WHITE cake - not OFF white. I used cake strips around each of my 9 inch pans and I placed the pans on a 3/4 baking sheet. I wanted to prevent overbrowning and to ensure even baking. You know how sometimes cake mix cakes are kind of fragile because they are a little to tender & fluffy? I think it's the added sour cream that adds some sturdiness to these layers because they were easy to handle and to ice. Also, I was careful to get cake mixes that did NOT have the added pudding in the mix. Some reviews stated that the extra pudding made the cake almost too moist, somewhat sticky. I used Duncan Hines White. I'm telling you, this is my idea of a delicious and perfect white cake!! You just need to get over the fact that it's not totally from sratch. I highly recommend it.

White Almond Wedding Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups water1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 egg whites

Directions:

1.    Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour an 11x13 inch cake pan.

2.    Stir together the white cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl until well mixed. Pour in the water, sour cream, vegetable oil, almond and vanilla extracts, and egg whites, and beat with an electric mix on low until all the ingredients are mixed and moistened but some lumps still remain, 4 minutes.

3.    Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, and bake in the preheated oven until the top is a light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Allow to cool before frosting.