Yellow Butter Cake

It all happened out of the blue, I had a hankering for butter pound cake. Not just any pound cake but the type you find in the old school Hainanese Kopitiam, the individually wrapped wedges that they placed on each table, with chocolate swirl in the center.

As if Aunt Lily, from Lily 's Wai Sek Hong can read my mind, she posted a recipe for a yellow butter cake on her website. According to her recipe, she recommended the use of European-style butter, which gives the cake a better flavor due to its higher fat content. She has also recommended the use of potato starch instead of just all purpose flour as it adds moisture to the cake.

The result was one good buttery tasting cake. It is nothing like the yellow pound cake in the Hainanese Kopitiam which I had in mind. However, Aunt Lily's yellow butter cake is very light and moist, with extremely fine crumbs that will not weight you down after you ate one. I would say it is way better than any boxed yellow cake mix you can buy at the grocery store. It is definitely a good recipe to be used as a base cake whenever a recipe called for yellow butter cake. I baked mine in mini loaf pan, as everyone in the family likes more golden brown sides to their cakes rather than the conventional 9 or 10-inch round cake pan.

I think this will be the cake base I will use from now on when making my Lemon Curd Layer Cake. I absolutely love the light and moist texture of the cake plus the buttery flavor. I am definitely in buttery yellow cake heaven. Thanks, Aunt Lily!

Yellow Butter Cake
(Adapted from Lily's Wai Sek Hong)


Ingredients
6 3/4 oz or 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ozs or 1/2 cup potato starch
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup fine granulated sugar(add more if you like a sweeter cake - max another 3/4 cups)
6 ozs or 10 tbsp European-Style butter - softened
3 large eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup half-and-half
2 tbsp bourbon (optional)
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions

Step 1: Prepare the pan. Grease pan well with butter. Preheat oven to 350F.

Step 2: Weigh out softened butter into a large mixing bowl. I am only doing half the recipe. You should be using more butter than shown above.

Step 3: Weigh out all the dry ingredients and sift into a bowl.

Step 4: Have all the wet ingredients ready.

Step 5: Using a hand or stand mixer, begin by creaming butter with sugar till it is light and fluffy. Add in eggs and vanilla. Beat till well combined.

Step 6: Divide flour into three portions. You can just use approximation. Add first portion to mix with half the milk and half&half. Beat till combined. Repeat with flour and milk, ending with flour.

Step 7: You should get a smooth batter like this.

Step 8: Spoon batter into 2 9-inch round cake pan or 2 mini 8-loaf pan. If using 9-inch cake pan, the baking time will be 28 minutes. If using mini loaf pan, the baking time will be around 25 minutes.

 Have a cup of tea ready. You will want to savor the cake with a perfect cup of English breakfast or earl grey tea.