Plain Cake

As a learner I faced few difficulties in making this simple cake and ended up with few disasters like hard cake or burned cake. Few reasons for the failure are, not beating the ingredients well, not pre-heating the oven, not choosing the right butter etc.


Now as an expert, I can suggest you few tips.

No matter whether you beat the ingredients with balloon whisk, fork, spatula or an electric blender, you need to make sure that you beat them well as per the required consistency which is the most important thing in making cake.

Always pre-heat the oven as advised.

Do not pour the batter into thick layer, as we will end up in having raw batter in the centre and burnt in the corners. Instead divide the dough into two and bake.

In India most of the people use home made butter so no question of quality. Where as in here there are loads and loads of varieties and we need to be very careful while choosing the butter.

I have given the minimum measurements to start with and when you gain enough experience you can increase the quantities. My mom’s and sister-in-law’s standard measurements are Maida, butter, sugar 250 gms each, 1 ½ tsp baking powder and 4 eggs. Those days when the technology was not available to the common man, my mom used to bake the cake using pressure pan half filled with sand and bake the cake on stove top.

Ingredients:
2 large or 3 medium eggs
Plain Flour – 150 gms
Sugar – 150 gms ground into fine powder.
Spreadable Butter – 150 gms (Room temperature)
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C/ Gas Mark 4 and place rack in centre of oven. Butter or spray with a non stick vegetable spray or line the bottom of a 7 inch cake pan with parchment paper.

Sugar, Plain Flour, Butter, eggs

Before preheating the oven keep all the ingredients measured, bowls and required tools to beat the ingredients.

Take a bowl and beat butter and sugar until forms a smooth paste like ice cream

Butter and sugar powder

Butter and sugar beaten into smooth cream

In a medium bowl combine the eggs and vanilla extract, beat until frothy.

Egg beaten until frothy 

In another bowl mix all the dry ingredients and incorporate the wet mixtures and blend them all until forms a smooth batter. If you are doing manually beat for about 10 -15 minutes. If you are using electric one beat for about 4-5 minutes. First mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened and slowly increase the speed. If the batter is not loose enough you can add 1 or 2 tblsp of milk

Mixing the dry ingredients with wet 

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. As a finishing bit pat the pan with both the hands, so that the batter spreads evenly. Bake for about 25 to 35 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

 

Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool completely on a lightly buttered wire rack.

cake that has a very moist, light, and velvety texture. Will keep well up to 5 days at room temperature.

 Plain Cake