Basic Butter Cake

This is almost like a staple in our family. We bake this at least once a week. Very easy and versetile. This is a lame photo of my bekal today - taken in a hurry, in discretion in the office and with my humble mobile phone. I won't say that this is the best butter cake recipe in the world, but it's easy enough (and yields a nice, soft, porous buttery cake too!). Beats any bakery bought cake anytime I'd say. And the aroma of the cake baking... pheeewwwww... You won't wanna miss it! As I baked this last night, my nephew waited not-so patiently near the oven - he got the 1st piece hot & fresh from the oven ;) I got this from Agnes Chang's book - Baking Made Easy. Give it a go!

Basic Butter Cake

Ingredients:

250 grams butter - soften to room temperature
200 - 250 grams sugar - I used 200 grams
4 eggs - at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla essense
250 grams self raising flour
4 tablespoons milk - I used Dutch Lady UHT milk

How to do it:

Put butter and sugar in mixing bowl. Beat on low speed till well mix. Then, beat on medium speed till creamy (sugar not fully dissolved yet).

Crack in 1st egg. Mix till creamy. Repeat this till all 4 eggs done - egg - mix till creamy, egg - mix till creamy.. you get the idea ;)

Put in the vanilla essense. Mix.

Divide the flour to 3 portions and dump in this sequence - flour - mix well, flour - mix well, flour - mix well.

Then pour in the milk and give it a final mix.

Pour in lined baking tray and bake in oven @ 180C for 40 minutes.


Here's a few tip from not-so-pro-me:

* All throughout the mixing process, make sure you stop every now and then to scrap the sides of the mixing bowl, to make sure everything is mixed up along with the rest. Everyone needs love :)

* To make the butter soften faster (like you suddenly have the craving to bake in the middle of the night *ahem, ahem, speaking from experience*) - cut them up in small cubes. I usually can bake after 15 minutes ;)

*If you wanna make orange cake, substitute the milk with orange juice - freshly squeezed from an orange fruit please :) And also make sure you grate some zest from the orange (to make 1 teaspoon) and put into the mixture. No zest makes the cake too mild (you can't taste the orange-ness). When you grate the orange, make sure you don't grate the whitish layer - that's bitter.

*If you want some bite to this cake, throw in anything you like - I've done raisins, choc chips, blackcurrent - anything and everything goes with this simple cake :)


*If you wanna make marble cake, pour 3/4 of plain batter into the baking tin. Then put the remaining 1/4 aside. Next, mix 1 tablespoon cocoa powder with 3 tablespoons HOT water till well mix. Pour into the 1/4 mixture. Mix well. Then, put dallops of the chocolate mixture on top of the plain one in the baking tray (like 1 tablespoon per dot - creating a polka-dot cake). Then, take a sharp knife and swiiirrrrlllll... Swirl as you like.

*On the lining of the baking tray, I am usually a slacker on this on - my mom does it too perfectly so I normally do not bother. What I would do when making for own consumption is to grease the baking tray with butter (just take any paper and take some butter and rub all over the tin). Then, throw in some flour and "powder" the whole butter layer - all around the tin (even the sides). This creates that "lining" layer so your cake does not stick. Well.... a BETTER alternative would be - get a none-stick baking tray!

*All ovens are different. It says in the recipe to bake at 180C but if I put my oven at that temp, my cake will be burnt within 15 minutes. So I keep mine at 110C. It's better to start at lower temperature :) Another thing will be - heat up the oven before you put the batter in. I normally heat the oven up @ 150C for 5 - 8 minutes. Nice and warm for the cake mixture :)

*Oh, and Agnes says this - all flour except sponge cake mix needs to be shifted. I shift mine all the time (erm, I take that back - Noel shifts flour for me all the time. Haha.)