A fluffy, buttery, classic sponge cake which lends itself to a range of different recipes. All mixed in one bowl in less than a minute, this recipe can be used for loaf cakes, slices, sandwich cakes and also streusel cakes, to name just a few. I call it ‘Sour Cream Cake’ to differentiate from my other core recipe cakes and also because it has a generous quantity of sour cream (or yoghurt) in the cake batter. This guarantees a moist and soft crumb each and every bake.
Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4 (fan 160°C) and grease and line your selected cake tin.
Make the cake: it is important that the butter is at room temperature and soft enough to beat. If it is a little hard, beat it with a whisk before adding the other ingredients. If it is already quite soft, you do not need to do this.
Measure the remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl with the butter. I place my mixing bowl on top my scales and weigh everything in directly.
Use an electric whisk to beat until combined. This should take less than a minute. All done.
Tip into your lined baking tin(s) and level the surface.
Bake in a preheated oven until cooked.
– 20cm/8in square tin – around 40 – 50 minutes
– 900g/2lb loaf tin – around 45 – 50 minutes
– 450g/1lb loaf tin – around 35 – 40 minutes
– deep 20cm/8in round tin – around 50 – 60 minutes
– 2 x 20cm/8in round tins – around 25 – 35 minutes
It is cooked when:
– the centre feels springy when lightly touched with your finger and no imprint remains
– a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean
– the cake is beginning to come away from the sides of the tin/dish.
Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.
Equipment:
Recipes on this site using this recipe as a base: