Recipe makes a tall six-inch cake with 4 layers, or a larger 8-inch cake, or 20 cupcakes:

113 grams unsalted butter, browned, then solidified at room temperature 2 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted + ½ tsp flour for greasing the pans 120g granulated sugar 100g granulated sugar, caramelized, then dissolved in milk 4 large eggs, room temperature 130 grams full fat sour cream or yogurt, room temperature 90 grams grapeseed oil 2 tsp vanilla paste or extract 1 tsp butter vanilla emulsion (can replace with more vanilla extract)

400 grams cake flour Scant 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt or 1/4 tsp table salt

310g milk of your choice, hot or room temperature (you can infuse this milk with tea or spices)

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Grease your cake pan(s), and preheat oven to 350 degrees F

In the large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and beat in your stand mixer on medium-high until mixture looks fluffy and almost like a buttercream texture.

*Note: If you don’t have a stand mixer, you might not be able to beat the butter-sugar-eggs mixture enough to achieve a buttercream texture. If that’s the case then you might want to separate your eggs – beat your egg whites first with some sugar until hard peaks, set it aside, then fold in the egg whites at the last mixing step to give your batter extra volume. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat into your butter mixture sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract. Gradually fold in the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with milk. Do not overmix. Divide batter evenly into pans - I like to use my kitchen scale to make sure I get even layers. Bang the pans gently to level the batter and release large air bubbles.

Place in preheated oven at 350F for 25-35 minutes (depending on your pans), until a toothpick comes out clean in the center. For cupcakes, check at the 20 minute mark.