Reverse creaming: adding butter to the dry ingredients

Useful to know

Reverse creaming mixes softened butter into the dry ingredients before adding the specified liquids and eggs. The initial mixture looks sandy rather than fluffy like butter creamed with sugar. [1]

That appearance does not necessarily indicate a mistake. What matters is the sequence for which the recipe was developed. Applying the steps to an unrelated cake will not necessarily produce the same result: proportions and technique work together. For a first attempt, choose a tested recipe that explicitly uses this method, so the intermediate textures can be compared with its instructions.