I've been baking and decorating professionally for 6 years now.  I've developed my own vanilla cake recipe way back when, which my customers often quote "the best vanilla cake ever".  My edges always browned a bit more than I liked, but never caused hardness or an issue with moistness.  Recently, my edges, bottoms and even tops were browning more than ever.  I figured something had to have changed in one of my ingredients.  So I began buying different brands and kept trying to figure it out.  Nothing changed.  Still not sure why the browning got worse recently, but coincidentally, I came across an article about browning heavy cream.  It said to quicken or enhance the browning, to add baking soda. "Hmmm", I thought.  So I decided to try adding less baking soda to my recipe.  It called for 2 tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp baking powder.  I only added 3/4 tsp. baking soda and kept the 1 tsp. baking powder the same.  OMG!  HUGE difference!!!

I'd like to add that the reason I even used 2 tsp. baking powder in the first place is because I adapted my vanilla cake from a chocolate cake I love, which calls for 2 tsp. baking soda.  Also, while researching this topic, I came across an article that stated 1/4 tsp. baking soda per 1 cup of flour.  My recipe calls for 2 3/4 cups of flour, so I went with 3/4 tsp.

And this is my beautiful cupcake (needs another 1/2 oz. to fill to the top) on the left compared to a past muffin-sized cupcake I made previous to my reduction in baking soda.  This is a vanilla, not a white recipe!  I'm so excited that I discovered this!  Can you tell?!  Lol!

Wow, huge difference!  Good to know, thanks.

that's so cool -- thank you

Well done!!

I see my cakes showed up twice, any my cupcakes, not at all!

I see my cakes showed up twice, any my cupcakes, not at all!