Recipe Review: Vanilla Cake

 A few weeks back, my Grandma celebrated her 93rd birthday! When you hear that, how could you not make a cake for her?!

Since we had just gotten home from California where we made some homemade blackberry jam, I wanted to find a way to use it in her cake! And that's where this recipe for vanilla cake from Recipe Tin Eats comes in...

This was hands down the best vanilla cake recipe I have ever tried! It was soft without being dry, had a good consistency, and tasted like vanilla wafers. Seriously. The. Best. (The recipe can be found here.)

Even though the cake has very specific directions (no dump it all in and mix for this one) it is definitely worth it and not even that complicated. To ice the cake, I made a basic vanilla buttercream and filled the cake with some buttercream and blackberry jam. The batch of jam I used ended up being a bit on the tart side so it went perfectly with the sugary frosting! 

I decorated the top of the cake with blackberries, blueberries, and mint leaves and then sprinkled some powdered sugar on top. 

It ended up looking so perfect!

For my Grandma's birthday, we headed down after John was done with work and picked up my other grandma on the way. We had a great dinner and then she was able to blow out her candles and open presents. 

When it was time to go, Brooke said, "Now next time we come, we're just going to have to sit and chat for a while because we didn't get to talk enough and I have a lot I want to talk with you about!" Haha!

Overall, Grandma said it was a good birthday. 

P.S. I only put 3 candles on the cake this year for 93 (the store was out of 9's) but thanks to my sister Julia, she did in fact have a cake with 90 candles on it the year she turned 90! And yes, she blew them all out!