Sunday 24 August 2008

Golden buttercream cake

I would describe this as one for the cake purists. What I mean by that is there’s nothing fancy on show here – just the perfect combination of sponge (this one’s a light Genoese) and buttercream.


The cake gets its name from the traditional adding of yellow food colouring to the buttercream. As both sponge and buttercream are naturally a golden hue I left the colouring out.

The sponges are beautiful in themselves; here they are cooling from the oven:


This is an old-fashioned cake although I always think it a little ridiculous to talk about cakes in terms of fashion. What I mean by “old fashioned” is that you can imagine it on a tea table at any point in history being enjoyed alongside a cup of tea.


I know it’s wrong to laugh at cake, but whenever a sponge comes out of the oven with its paper collar on I can’t help but think it looks like those collars that are put on poorly dogs to stop them biting their stitches! See what I mean?


Ingredients:
For the cake:
225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
225g self raising flour

For the buttercream:
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g icing sugar
3 drops yellow colouring (optional)

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease and line two 20cm round sandwich tins.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Gradually beat in the eggs and vanilla along with the flour. Adding the eggs and flour gradually at the same time stops the mix from curdling.
- Spoon the mixture into the tins and level the surfaces.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 35 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tins before turning out onto a wire rack and letting cool completely.
- For the icing beat together the butter and vanilla until pale and smooth.
- Beat in the icing sugar and food colouring (if using). Beat until totally smooth.
- Sandwich the cakes with just over half the buttercream, then spread the rest on top of the cake.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

5 comments:

Katie said...

Thats one tall and fluffy looking cake.

Mike of Mike's Table said...

This looks like such a classic...and wow do I want a slice right now (forget that its breakfast time!). And I loved the comparison to the paper dog collars, lol...

Shubha Ravikoti said...

Y do u put the paper collar on the pan...what paper is it? and when do u put it... before u bake is it?

The Caked Crusader said...

Hi Shubha

I use baking paper (you can also use greaseproof paper) as it means you don't have to butter the pan i.e. add extra fat. Also, it keeps a nice shape to the cake when the cake rises above the level of the pan

Hope this helps

The Caked Crusader

mamita said...

It sure looks great,fluffy and yummy! Thanks for sharing your recipe. I hope you and your family had Happy Holidays.