Let Me Eat Cake!

I have to make a cake this weekend for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party, so I did a trial run today.  It came out pretty good.  And by pretty good, I mean amazingly delicious.  Considering I didn't use a mix.

But what even goes into a cake?  Because if you had asked me this morning, I would have said, "cake mix, eggs, oil."  But instead, I would now tell you, "butter, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, eggs, milk, vanilla".  In that order.  All into the kitchenaid.  Proper recipe is here. I baked my cupcakes for about 25-30 minutes, and my cake for about 40, and the tops were crispy-crunchy and the insides were fantastic.  

I would like to try making my own cake mix to have handy (probably using powdered milk), but this recipe was so easy that I'm sure I will turn to it in the future.  I also might give it a try with applesauce instead of half the butter, but 1/2 stick of butter for an entire cake was one of the lowest amounts I could find in the recipes - but if anybody has seen any other ideas, please share!