lychee butter cake again

I am such a klutz. After 2 consecutive (mini) cake disasters, I felt the immense need (and pressure) to bake a proper cake. Hence, I decided to attempt the lychee butter cake again after the last dry, overbaked cake. So, the past few days have been spent poring through websites and cookbooks on how to make the perfect butter cake and ta da! I (almost) succeeded today. Almost because the cake fell apart! *sob*

The day started of great. Work ended early, it was nice and sunny but not too hot. The cake smelt wonderful in the oven, the aroma of butter, eggs, sugar and lychee. Yup! There it was, the distinctive sweet floral smell of lychee amidst the usual suspects. It seems like the stars are finally aligned until the moment I was turning the pan to remove the cake, it fell. Whoops. Or rather, ARGH!!!

So now, my "perfect" cake has a huge crack right in the middle, like the major earthquake that recently happened. And at the same moment, the sky turned dark and threatens to rain, almost on cue to my "misery". (I swear it's true!) Not to mention that the camera battery was running low too.

O wells, looks like it's not a baking day after all.

PS: the cake really really tasted yummy, moist soft butter cake (like sara lee) but not oily or heavy and with a distinctive lychee flavour.


Lychee Butter Cake (changes in red)
1- 14 oz can lychees (about 1 cup lychees, reserve the liquid)
2 cups (240g) cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (160g) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (160 g) sugar
2 eggs around 60g each with shells
6 tbsp lychee liquid
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8x8 baking pan.

Drain the lychees and cut into small pieces; set aside. Toss the lychee pieces in the flour mixture to coat (this will help keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter).

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside. Mix well

In a stand mixer, cream the butter starting at low speed then to medium (total 2 minutes). Add sugar to butter and continue creaming from low to medium speed and then to low speed again in last minute (total 4-5minutes), until light (almost ivory white) and fluffy. Creaming at low speed helps produce fine crumb.

Add the eggs, 1 tsp at a time with mixer at low speed, and then the vanilla. Mix to combine.

Add flour and lychee mixture to the batter and mix to combine. Start by adding 1/2 of the flour and mix at low speed, stop as soon as it is combined. Then add 1/2 of the lychee with 3 tbsp of lychee liquid, mix at low speed and stop as soon as it is combined. Repeat with remaining 1/2 of flour, followed and lychee/lychee liquid and ending with rest of the flour. Do NOT over mix, stop the mixer once most of it is well mixed.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. About 4ominutes at 180C without fan. Leave in pan for 10minutes before unmolding. Cool on wire rack before serving.