Scrumptious Cake

Continuing with the cake theme, this is one of the best cake recipes that I have ever tried. It came out just like the ones that I used to bake with my  mom. I have these memories from when I was 6 or 7 years old. I used to sit in the kitchen with mom and help her mix all the different ingredients. I remember beating the eggs with a whisk and being thrilled to see the egg whites turn into foam. Each ingredient was handled individually and it used to seem like a long loving process. Moreover, we didn't have an oven, so my mom used to send me to get some sand from the garden and then bake a cake using that. And I used to wait quite impatiently for the cake to cool down before we could have a taste. It was a wonderful and magical time and I wish I could go back to those days. Baking this cake took me back to those days.

This is a recipe from the William Sonoma Cake book with some adjustments based on the ingredients I had and some modifications to the process.

Ingredients
1and 1/4 cups, plus 2 tbsp of all purpose flour (maida)
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter - room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup milk

Method
Grease a baking dish with some butter and dust with some all purpose flour. Preheat the oven to 350F.
Sieve all the dry ingredients together and keep aside. Sieve these ingredients a couple of times. In another bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar. Beat it till the butter is fluffy. Add one egg at a time to this and beat each egg into the mixture till it is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Add one third of the dry ingredients to the batter and fold it in. Then add half of the milk and mix. Alternate between the milk and dry ingredients till they are all incorporated into the batter.
Bake the cake at 350 F for about 20 minutes. Use a knife and insert it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. If not, bake for a few more minutes.
Take if out and  let the pan cool  on a wire rack for 10-15 mins. Then invert the pan onto the cooling rack and slide the cake out. Let the cake cool if you wish to ice it.

Tips
The cake should be completely cooled down before icing it. If the eggs are separated and the whites beaten separately before being added to the batter, the cake will be lighter. You can add the yolks after the butter and sugar. But fold in the egg whites after all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the batter.