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:

  1. Thats one tall and fluffy looking cake.

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  2. 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...

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  3. 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?

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  4. 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

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

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