Buttercake
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Serves: 12-16 serves
 

All served and about to be eaten!

Ingredients
INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKE
  • 250g butter, room temperature
  • 150g plain yoghurt
  • 200g full cream milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
  • 4 x 59g eggs, room temperature
  • 420g golden caster sugar, or plain caster sugar
  • 400g self-raising flour
  • 40g custard powder
INGREDIENTS FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
  • 120g butter, cold, straight from the fridge, cut into cubes
  • 400g icing sugar (you will add this in 4 lots of 100g)
  • 2 tsp coconut essence (or vanilla extract for vanilla buttercream)
  • 1 tsp sea salt flakes
  • 20 to 40g + sour cream (or cream if you don’t have sour cream)
  • shredded coconut for decorating (if desired)
Instructions
THERMOMIX METHOD
  1. Preheat oven to 170 (fan forced)
  2. Arrange rack into middle of oven
  3. Grease and line 24 cm cake tin (base measurement)
  4. Place butter into TM bowl and mix 40 seconds / 50 degrees / speed 4 (this will loosen up the butter, but not melt it completely which you don’t want to do … if it is completely melted the cake will be heavier)
  5. Insert butterfly, add yoghurt, milk, vanilla and eggs and mix 10 seconds / speed 3
  6. Add sugar, flour and custard powder … you will see that the bowl is very full so use a spatula or spoon to stir though some of the batter to bring liquid from the bottom to the top before continuing … replace lid and mix 10 seconds / speed 3
  7. Lift lid, stir around the top again, and mix 30 seconds / speed 3
  8. Pour batter into cake tin smoothing the top when you have finished
  9. TIP: to get all the batter out, remove butterfly scraping off the mix, sit in on the upturned lid, remove as much batter as possible from bowl into cake tin using a flexible spatula, return butterfly to bowl and spin 2 seconds / speed 5 so that the remaining batter on the butterfly will spin off onto the sides of the bowl allowing you to easily remove the last bits
  10. Bake for 1 hour, or when a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean (it takes exactly an hour and 10 minutes in my oven)
  11. Cool for 15 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing
CONVENTIONAL METHOD (I use a hand held electric beater for this)
  1. Preheat oven and prepare cake tin as per above instructions
  2. Place butter into mixing bowl and soften it lightly (easiest to do this in the microwave) but not melt it ... you want it to be really soft but not runny, put aside for a moment
  3. Place yoghurt, milk, eggs and vanilla in a separate container
  4. With your hand beater, mix these four ingredients together for a few seconds, then add the egg mix to the butter in the separate bowl and blend again for another few seconds until all the wet ingredients are well incorporated
  5. Sieve together the sugar, flour and custard powder
  6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and mix with the hand beater for at least two minutes … during this time the mix should fluff up quite a lot
  7. Pour mixture into cake tin and bake as per above
METHOD FOR BUTTERCREAM
  1. Place butter to TM bowl and mix 20 seconds / speed 4
  2. Add first lot of 100g icing sugar and mix 10 seconds / speed 4
  3. Add second lot of 100g icing sugar and mix 10 seconds / speed 4
  4. Add third lot of 100g icing sugar and mix 10 seconds / speed 4, scrape bowl
  5. Add final 100g icing sugar, coconut essence, sea salt flakes and 40g sour cream and mix 10 seconds / speed 4, scrape around bowl and repeat
  6. Check consistency and if a looser icing is required add another 20g sour cream and mix 10 seconds / speed 4
  7. Refrigerate overnight to allow flavours to develop (icing can be used straight away but I like to do this - it is an optional step)
  8. Remove icing from the fridge a couple of hours before you wish to use it and allow to come to room temperature (loosen buttercream in container by stirring with a spoon before spreading)
  9. Spread over cake and top with coconut shreds
  10. Allow icing to set for about an hour before cutting
Notes
When baking it has always been stressed to me that eggs should be at room temperature, so I take them out of the fridge the day before I plan to bake. With the butter I also take it out of the fridge the night before baking if the weather is cool, or an hour before baking if the weather is warm. Having the chill off these items can make a little difference … but if you forget to do this please don’t worry … it is just a suggestion.

I have given both the Thermomix and non Thermomix method for this cake ... each will give a slightly different result due to the method of processing.

I prefer to make the icing the day before I need it and refrigerate overnight … this allows flavours to develop but this it totally optional … it can be used straight away if you wish.

The quantities given with give you a firmer icing, so for a looser icing use more sour cream.

If you wish to make a chocolate buttercream, then add 20g Dutch cocoa with the last 100g of icing sugar, and you will need to add a touch more sour cream … check and adjust to desired consistency as you go ... see here for the recipe for my chocolate buttercake using my chocolate cream cheese icing.

It is a large cake, and a great one for birthdays and other family celebrations.
Recipe by The Passionate Pantry at https://www.thepassionatepantry.com.au/buttercake/