Food You Can Eat: Butter Cake

9/1/24 butcherbakertoiletrymaker 13
Looks plain. Tastes fucking awesome.

The retrospective of FYCE offerings continues. This post is from August, 2021:

First things first:  So far, I think this is the best of the cake recipes from my grandmother’s collection.  The sponge is very light and moist, and the buttercream recipe I used was likewise better than expected.  I made it to celebrate my youngest step-daughter’s graduate degree, and we sent the leftovers home with her and her husband because one fewer cake for me to eat by myself is an unqualified good thing…but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to keep it because damn is that cake good.

A caveat before we get started:  There are several different buttercream recipes that my grandmother kept on hand.  This one appeared to be both the easiest and the right amount to use for this particular cake.  It’s really something.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Cake:

⅔ Cups Butter, softened

1 ¾ Cups Sugar

2 Eggs

1 ½ tsp. Vanilla

3 Cups Sifted Cake Flour

2 ½ tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Salt

1 ¼ Cup Milk

Buttercream:

½ Lb. Butter, softened

2 Cups Powdered Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 Egg White, beaten

To make the cake, cream together butter and sugar, pouring sugar in at a slow but steady pace.  When mixture is fluffy, add eggs and vanilla and beat another five minutes.

This is creamed butter, not buttercream.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir into butter mixture, alternating with the milk. 

This is the texture for which you’re looking.

Pour batter into a buttered cake pan.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out relatively clean.  What you want is just a little bit of cake to stick to it—but for it to be cake and not uncooked batter.  If the toothpick is completely clean then the cake will be too dry.

Once again, the timing in the instructions was way off. This took 42 minutes to bake properly.

Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting it.

To make the buttercream, cream the butter while adding powdered sugar slowly and beat until smooth. 

Add vanilla and egg whites and beat until soft peaks form.

This is buttercream, not creamed butter.

Use food coloring of choice, if desired. 

Spread evenly over the cooled cake.  This buttercream has an excellent texture for decorating so if you need to make any borders or write on the cake, this recipe handles it very well.

Serve with ice cream and a healthy dose of smug satisfaction while your friends and family squeal with delight.

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About butcherbakertoiletrymaker 603 Articles
When you can walk its length, and leave no trace, you will have learned.

13 Comments

  3. Your “healthy dose of smug satisfaction” is well-deserved. Boy, but that looks good. Extra points for the piping. And even extra-er points for the buttercream frosting recipe.

  4. I love the older cakes like this that look basic until you realize how delightful they are.

    Have you seen the cookbook American Cake by Anne Byrn? She goes through rough time periods based on major technological innovations (baking powder! gas ranges!) and cultural zeitgeist (later). Her sections on the 1960s and 1980s are really a lot of “wow how complicated and decadent can this be? JUST BECAUSE WE CAN” and man I find that the over the top stuff doesn’t work as well for home baking.

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