Butter Cake

There are a thousand and one ways of using butter and you should definitely bake a cake with it because a cake infused with butter smells and tastes heavenly.

My aunt bakes wonderful butter cakes with, which she calls her little secret, her own butter cake recipe. She had actually warned me, jokingly, not to share this family recipe with others, but hey, where's the joy if its not shared and multiplied right? Haha.

The key is actually to swap a portion of self raising flour with hong kong flour and sift 3 times to achieve a soft butter cake!

Sharing the buttery joy,
Gustatory Explorer

Butter Cake

- 115g Self Raising Flour
- 85g Hong Kong Flour
- 200g Fine Sugar
- 8 Egg Yolks
- 6 Egg Whites
- 250g Salted Butter
- 1 tsp Cream of Tartar
- 1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven at 200°C. Line a 20x20x7cm cake tin with baking paper and grease it.

2. Sift both the flour together 3 times and set aside. Seperate the yolks and the whites. Place the whites in a mixing bowl and the yolks into a small bowl.

3. Place the butter into another mixing bowl and start mixing at med-low speed while adding 2/3 of the sugar in spoonful by spoonful before adding in the yolks successively. Crank the mixer up a bit faster, add in 1 tsp of vanilla essence and stop once everything is incorporated. *Don't let the mixture beat for too long or else it will heat up.

4. Put the cream of tartar into the bowl of whites before starting the mixer on low, add in the remaining 1/3 of the sugar then mix on high speed till glossy and soft peaks. *I learned how to Q.C this step and that is to turn the bowl of mixed whites upside down, if it does not fall out, its done.

5. Whisk in a quarter of the whites followed by a quarter of the flour into the butter and sugar mixture. And follow through in a similar fashion till your cake batter is well incorporated.

6. Bake for 50mins at 180°C. *You may want to cover with aluminium foil first then let the top brown for the last 5-10mins. Cool, slice and serve.