YELLOW BUTTER CAKE

What comes in your mind when you hear about a yellow butter cake?  I can only picture two moist yellowish layers of cake sandwiched and frosted with chocolate butter cream or chocolate frosting.  I personally think that the secret of making a good yellow butter cake depends on the quality of the ingredients you are using.  If you use good quality butter and full cream milk, your cake is going to have a rich flavour.

Jaworski Stephanie uses only egg yolks to make her yellow butter cake, that's why the final product had a nice yellowish colour.  On the other hand, Gisslen Wayne (2005) uses whole eggs in her recipe.  I am going to use the recipe of Gisslen Wayne (2005), Professional Baking, 4th Edition with minor modifications.

Click Here for the wonderful recipe of Jaworski Stephanie.
Click Here to have a look at the yellow butter cake made by Ezell Walter who also used the recipe of Gisslen Wayne (2005), Professional Baking, 5th Edition.

I am still using the 4th Edition.  So outdated!!  Ezell Walter wonderfully sandwiched and frosted his cake.  Just by looking at his picture, you can guess it's a butter cake.

I won't be frosting mine... Seriously, I won't...  Else nobody would eat the cake at home.

Original recipe for 200 g flour calculated using % formula: 200 g cake flour, 8 g baking powder, 160 g butter, 174 g sugar, 100 g eggs, 200 g liquid milk, 1.5 g salt, 3 g vanilla extract.

Ingredients

200 g self raising flour + 4 g baking powder
160 g good quality butter
170 g caster sugar
100 g egg*
200 g liquid milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla essence

* 100 g egg is approximately 2 large eggs.  Tare a bowl on your weighing balance.  Break the two eggs in the bowl; make sure you don't mix the white with the yolk while breaking it.  If the egg is greater than 100 g, adjust the weight by discarding a bit of the egg white only.     

The recipe called for ingredients at room temperature (70°F/21°C).

Method 

1.  Sift the flour and baking powder.

2.  Place the butter in a mixing bowl.  Beat the butter slowly until it is smooth and creamy.

3. Add the sugar, vanilla and salt; cream the mixture at moderate speed until it is light and fluffy. This will take about 8-10 minutes.

4. Add the eggs a little at a time. After each addition, beat until the eggs are absorbed before adding more.  After the eggs are beaten in, mix until light and fluffy for about 5 minutes.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

5. Add the sifted dry ingredients alternating with the liquids. This is done as follows:
Add one-fourth of the dry ingredients. Mix just until blended in.
Add one-third of the liquid. Mix just until blended in.

Repeat until all ingredients are used. Scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally for even mixing.

1.  Creaming   2.  Beating in eggs   3.  Folding in flour

The reason for adding dry and liquid ingredients alternately is that the batter may not absorb all the liquid unless some of the flour is present.  MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS STEP PROPERLY TO AVOID CURDLING.

6.  Pour in a greased and lined tin OR in a greased and floured tin.  I used a loaf pan (Length 20 cm x Breadth 8cm x Depth 7 cm).

Feel free to pour the batter into two sandwich pans if you want to sandwich and frost the cake with chocolate frosting.

7.  Bake at 190°C for 35-45 minutes.  Leave the cake to cool for 15 minutes in the pan.   When warm, invert on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before slicing.