Made scratch cake - it tasted very bitter

Too much baking powder for the amount of flour. 1.5 cup is aprox 240 g flour and you should use only 1/2 tsp baking powder. And eventually too much vanilla extract too. That can cause a bitter taste too
I tend to agree with you. That’s a lot of baking powder to flour ratio. 1 1/2 cups flour isn’t a lot . Both baking powder and vanilla extract could be reduce by half.
 
No, I did add the sugar and had a difficult time blending it with the butter.
Was your butter soft? Sugar won't blend with cold hard butter very well. It also seems like there wasn't enough liquid (milk) in the recipe. 🤔 Was this recipe a random recipe from a food site or a handwritten recipe that someone gave you? Sometimes people leave out an ingredient accidently.

Food mysteries.🕵️‍♂️
 
Was your butter soft? Sugar won't blend with cold hard butter very well. It also seems like there wasn't enough liquid (milk) in the recipe. 🤔 Was this recipe a random recipe from a food site or a handwritten recipe that someone gave you? Sometimes people leave out an ingredient accidently.

Food mysteries.🕵️‍♂️
It was butter right out of the fridge, but I microwaved it a few seconds to soften it. I got the recipe from a Web site, but now I can't remember where. It was a while ago.
 
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Another thought. Did you use cake flour or all purpose flour? Regular flour in "some" cake recipes can make it taste to---heavy, floury, or bland, When I make a vanilla cake, I use a vanilla bean or a Tablespoon of vanilla because I want it to taste like vanilla. :) But of course the amount is for a larger cake too.
 
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No, it didn't have much of any flavor.
If you add too much baking soda to a recipe, the baked good will likely rise excessively and then collapse, resulting in a dense, coarse texture with a potential soapy taste, as the excess baking soda reacts with the liquids in the batter, creating too much carbon dioxide gas that can't be properly contained by the other ingredients; this can also lead to a bitter flavor depending on the recipe.
 
Maybe your sense of taste is off, have someone else sample it.
It really could be this. I will comment on a flavour of something I made and DH will say it’s good. I developed a dislike of gel toothpastes. Since they still sell these, it’s obviously something that’s changed with me.

Did you do a taste test of the vanilla.
 

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