"No Fail" Vanilla Cake= You can Fail. BUT I didn't! Thank you smarts!

So as I was putting S to bed tonight, I decided I wanted vanilla cake. I will say in retrospect this was a horrible thought to have cross my mind for two reasons. One, it's now 8:30pm [late in new mama world] and the cake is still baking at my normal bed time. Two, baking a cake from scratch when you don't have a cake mix means you eat more batter than normal and need to have a glass of wine while cooking and you're not hungry anymore and would rather be in bed by the time the cake is ready.

I digress.

I googled "easy vanilla cake recipe". I have never ever baked a cake from scratch. Don't judge, I've been busy with things like grad school, residency, and having babies. Fine, one baby. But one baby is a lot of work. So I decided tonight would be a first! Google away.

I found one. It said "NO FAIL". I consider something no-fail when, if the directions are followed, you cannot mess up. I followed the directions EXACTLY. Then do you know what happened? I poured the batter into the pan.... and I thought hm this looks like cookie dough NOT cake batter. I went back and read again. I realized the author forgot to tell us when to put in the milk. So I poured the cake back OUT of the pan back into the {beautiful kitchenaid} mixer and added milk. Thank goodness I've got some brains in my head and feet in my shoes and steered myself in the direction I choose. Name that book. Anyone. Oh also I didn't EXACTLY follow the directions either. I maybe substituted pure maple syrup for vanilla extract.

I baked. The cake rose. The cake smells awesome. I cut a little piece out. The cake tastes... good. Not AMAZING, but good. Fluffy, not dry, and I think I'll call it a mostly success.

Here's the recipe. EXCEPT ADD MILK! Add after you beat the butter & sugar but before the flour.

Leaving this bad boy to cool off and will frost it up in the morning. Because do you know what tomorrow is? Sienna's 5 month birthday! I'll put some yellow frosting on it to celebrate our girl [even though she can't eat cake yet].

Happy caking!