Sunday, December 19, 2010

Butter Cake


You may have notice that the pictures quality that I've posted in the recent postings seems to be slightly different from the older ones. I need to confess that the recent 'not-so-nice' pictures were taken by me and not hubby. I hope as time goes by, I'll be able to improve on my photography skills but right now, please bear with my pictures. We came back from our Saturday errands late in the evening and I immediately started on my cake baking. I saw this Butter Cake recipe from Technicolor Kitchen and she said it's the kind of butter cake that grandma used to make. Err.. I guess Chinese grandma don't usually bake butter cake so this statement is not relevant to me. I like everything she makes and she even take very beautiful pictures of her food. For this recipe, she poured a very generous amount of icing topping. It looked so immensely nice with the snowy white topping but of course for the cake that I baked today, I cut the topping by half. The texture of cake is more than satisfying but I can't help feeling it's a tad too sweet for me. Perhaps you would like to omit the topping altogether or reduce the sugar in the cake.


Cake:
½ cup + 1 tablespoon (127g) unsalted butter, very well softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 ½ tablespoons (218g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ cups + 1 ½ tablespoons (225g) all purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder, sifted
¼ teaspoon baking soda, sifted
pinch of salt
½ cup (120ml) whole milk, room temperature

Icing:
1 cup (140g) icing sugar, sifted
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice or water

Method:
Preheat the oven to 160°C; butter a 20cm (8in) round cake pan, line the bottom with baking paper and butter the paper as well.

Place the butter, vanilla, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and milk in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat on low speed until combined.

Scrape the sides of the bowl, then beat in high speed until the mixture is just smooth.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until risen, golden and cooked through when tested with a toothpick. Allow to cool in the pan, on a wire rack, for 5 minutes, then carefully unmold onto the rack. Let cool completely.

Make the icing: place the sugar in a small bowl and gradually add the juice/water, mixing until smooth (add more liquid if necessary). Drizzle over the cake.

2 comments:

Patricia Scarpin said...

Rachel, I believe that food photography is a learning curve and I am sure you'll be taking even more beautiful photos in no time!
I'm glad you like the cake, even if you thought it was a bit too sweet - it's very interesting how the cultures vary in terms of food, don't you think? My grandma had Portuguese origins and was married to an Italian, and that cake recipe came from an Australian cookbook author. :)

Thank you for the kind words about my blog, you are just too sweet!

xx

Rachel n Chong said...

Patricia, I've been itching to try out most of your recipes every single day but I'm telling myself to be patient. I do hope to cultivate a passion in photography but right now, I just wanna bake and bake and bake. As for the sweetness, I think it varies in terms of individual. Sometimes I thought the sweetness is ok but my hubby or colleagues will think otherwise. It's hard to satisfy everyone in terms of sweetness or saltiness. Anyway, great job you did with your blog. Can't wait to see what you will make next.