Special Butter Cake
Special Butter Cake
This is a simple, rich, and moist cake for which you should choose your butter (and your friends) wisely. Easily made in California and a handful of other states, the number of which are increasing every four years or so, it’s perhaps a dessert best enjoyed at the beginning of the meal. In the words of Alice B. Toklas describing the Haschich Fudge in her 1954 bestseller The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book: “This is the food of Paradise—of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises: it might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR. In Morocco it is thought to be good for warding off the common cold in damp winter weather and is, indeed, more effective if taken with large quantities of hot mint tea. Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extension of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected.”
Ingrediënten
Serves 6
- ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon butter softened, plus 2 teaspoons for greasing
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 large eggs
- Zest and juice of 1 orange
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- Salt
Instructies
- It helps to know: This recipe requires a 9- to 10-inch round cake pan.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Grease a cake pan with 2 teaspoons butter.
- Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the sugar into the pan, then shake and tilt the pan until it’s evenly coated in the sugar.
- Turn the pan upside down and tap it to shake off any excess sugar.
- In a large bowl, use a wooden spoon to stir together the remaining butter and sugar until combined.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing each with the wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.
- Grate the zest from the orange and lemon over the bowl and then add the juice (no need to strain).
- Mix until smooth.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt into a small bowl and stir to combine.
- Fold the flour mixture into the batter and mix until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and tap the pan gently on your countertop to settle the batter into an even layer.
- Bake until the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and turn golden, about 25 minutes.
- Remove the cake from your oven and let it cool until it’s just slightly warm.
- Turn the cake out of the pan, cut it into thick slices, and serve.
