Recipe from Junior’s
Adapted by Alex Witchel
- Total Time
- 1 hour 45 minutes
- Rating
- 4(270)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Craving a good old-fashioned cake, a tall, frosted showgirl, preening on a high crystal stand? This yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a macaroon crunch is just the ticket. This recipe is adapted from one made at Junior’s in Brooklyn. The cake is moist, and the frosting sweet. Quite sweet, actually. Just right. —Alex Witchel
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Ingredients
Yield:One 9-inch cake
- Butter, for greasing cake pans
- 1⅔cups sifted cake flour
- 1tablespoon baking powder
- ¾teaspoon salt
- 10extra-large eggs, separated
- 1⅓cups sugar
- 1tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½teaspoon pure lemon extract
- ¾cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- ½teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1½cups finely chopped nuts (almonds, pecans and/or walnuts)
- ½cup sweetened coconut flakes
- 8cups (2 pounds) sifted confectioners’ sugar
- 1⅔cups unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½teaspoon salt
- 1½cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½cup margarine, at room temperature
- ¼cup dark corn syrup
- 2tablespoons vanilla extract
- ¾cup heavy cream, or as needed
For the Cake
For the Macroon Crunch
For the Chocolate Frosting
Preparation
Step
1
For the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter two round 9-inch cake pans, and line bottoms with parchment or wax paper. Sift cake flour, baking powder and salt together.
Step
2
Using a stand mixer, beat egg yolks on high for 5 minutes. With mixer still running, gradually add 1 cup sugar and continue beating until thick, light yellow ribbons form in bowl, about 5 minutes more, scraping bowl two or three times. Beat in the vanilla and lemon extracts. Sift flour mixture over batter and stir it in by hand until blended. Add melted butter, and stir until completely incorporated.
Step
3
In a large, clean bowl, and using the mixer’s whisk attachment, beat egg whites and cream of tartar together on high until frothy. Gradually add remaining ⅓ cup sugar, and continue beating until whites are stiff but not dry. Stir 1 cup of whites into batter, then gently fold in remaining whites until blended. Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until golden and center springs back when lightly touched, about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely.
Step
4
For macaroon crunch: Toss nuts and coconut together, and spread on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until golden and crunchy, 10 to 15 minutes, tossing twice. Set aside to cool.
Step
5
For chocolate frosting: Sift the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa and salt together. Using a stand mixer, cream together the butter and margarine on high until light yellow and slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. With mixer still running, add corn syrup and vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add sugar mixture in two batches, beating well after each. Blend in ¾ cup cream until frosting is a spreading consistency, adding more if needed. Increase speed to high and beat until light and creamy, about 2 minutes more; there will be about 8 cups of frosting. Spoon about 1 cup into a pastry bag fitted with a medium star tip.
Step
6
For assembly: Using a long serrated knife, cut each cake horizontally into two equal layers. Spread first layer with about a fifth of frosting, then place second layer on top of it and frost it, too. Repeat with third and fourth layers. Frost sides with all remaining frosting except what is in pastry bag. Pat macaroon crunch on sides of cake (not top) until covered. Using frosting in pastry bag, pipe 6 rosettes on top of cake. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate, allowing cake to stand at room temperature for about an hour before slicing.
Ratings
4
out of 5
270
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Cooking Notes
Kathryn
This is the first yellow from scratch cake I have made. It was really good but mine turned out a bit on the dry side. It is a nice firm cake. The icing is amazing, beautiful flavour. I substituted maple syrup for the corn syrup as I didn't have corn syrup. Jenks, below, is correct..keep an eye on the coconut/nut mixture.
MY family loved the cake though and thought it was the best cake ever.
jenks
Awesome cake. Really pay attention to the nuts/coconut though, because they can go from crisp to burnt pretty quick (oops).
Tasty but dry
This is a nice cake but a little dry. I would use oil instead of butter in the batter.
Victoria Pond
This cake is amazing. I’ve been making lots of NYT cakes, just to find my perfect, go-to cake recipe, and I think I’ve found it. I was careful to bake it just for 25 minutes and it came out perfectly done, not dry at all. I didn’t cut the cake into layers, just frosted the two layers out of the pans, and that was a good amount of frosting for me. I think I’ve fund my cake!
david
This was a lot of work (as is the case with cakes from scratch). Unfortunately I found it dense and dry after all that. Any number of things can go wrong—from improper creaming of butter and sugar to not enough air in eggs. I clearly need to practice
david
I agree with everyone that this recipe is not reliable and makes a super dense rubbery cake with no crumb.
Patty C
I made this twice. The second time I was sure to perfectly follow the directions because the first time I thought I did something wrong. The icing and macaroon crunch are amazing. The cake looked like it would be amazing, but it "deflated" after I took it out of the oven. This happened both times that I made it. The flavor was great, but the texture was dense and it was misshapen. Guests commented that it was dense and considering the time and effort put into this cake, I was disappointed.
Anna
I usually use David's Yellow Cake recipe but wanted to have options. Made this cake as written. I was very careful to not over cream sugar, eggs, butter so texture would not become dense. As someone else described, it's a very "sturdy" cake. It's not dense, but it has no crumb, so its not really tender enough. I didn't have time to spilt the layers into 4, but I definitely think it should be 4 layers as it would be a better frosting to cake ratio in every bite. I would also omit the lemon.
dana
A delicious cake! I’ve made it twice. The first time, I cut the layers in half, like the recipe says. But I found that the light and airy cake got smushed under multiple layers and frosting. So the second time I made it, I didn’t cut the layers in half, and it’s still looking light and airy! Love it.
truesdell
Cake was dense and rubbery, but icing was superb! Perhaps the egg whites were overly blended? May try a different cake recipe next time but utilize the icing!
Pam
There is definitely something wrong with this recipe. It calls for only 1-2/3 cup of flour and 10 eggs. It turned out extremely dense and the cakes shrunk and wrinkled after baking. Is the flour amount correct??? I would not make this again unless there is a correction. Feedback?
Aaron M
I made the cake, but used a different frosting. The cake had an excellent flavor, but it was a bit dense. My family and I definitely enjoyed it, but next time, I'll probably go with a different recipe.
lilian
I have not made this cake which looks delicious. I only want to point out there is a typo where it says "for the macroon crunch" it should say "macaroon"
Kathryn
This is the first yellow from scratch cake I have made. It was really good but mine turned out a bit on the dry side. It is a nice firm cake. The icing is amazing, beautiful flavour. I substituted maple syrup for the corn syrup as I didn't have corn syrup. Jenks, below, is correct..keep an eye on the coconut/nut mixture.
MY family loved the cake though and thought it was the best cake ever.
jenks
Awesome cake. Really pay attention to the nuts/coconut though, because they can go from crisp to burnt pretty quick (oops).
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