Sour Cream Vanilla Cake

A good storecupboard standby (if you can classify sourcream as storecupboard I suppose). This is one of Dan Lepard's recipes, minimally adapted to suit my fridge.

I remember making this in an adapted form a very long time ago, and not really being very enamoured of it (you can see my original post here) but circumstances dictated that I needed to use up the sour cream, wanted a cake at the end of the day and the two collided in this recipe.

You can find the version published in the Guardian here (I used the version in Short and Sweet) but there are changes in the quantities of butter, sugar and eggs, so although similar it's not exactly the same cake. As I mentioned I made a couple of change of my own. I only had a small (150ml) tub of soured cream, but did have some full-fat Greek yogurt too, so I used all the soured cream and made up the difference with yogurt. I also added 2tsp vanilla extract to the mixture too. I found my cake took about 70 minutes to bake, but it is a deep cake so this is to be expected. I think I recall covering it with foil after about 45 minutes.

I recently bought some parchment cake tin liners from Lakeland, having resisted for a long time. I'm not sure why I waited so long (well, I guess cash is part of the answer - they aren't cheap!) Well, they won't be suitable in all circumstances - they do give a pleated edge to your cakes, which is quite attractive in homely style cakes such as this, but wouldn't be any good if you want a smooth finish, but I'm very impressed! No bother of lining the tin, and saved a little on washing up too - always a bonus! In addition, once I had cut the cake, I simply lifted the liner with the cake contained inside into my cake tin for easy transport to work. 

Noted by Dan as a very buttery cake, best eaten cold I thought this was an absolute dream to cut - you can see how neatly the slices cut - no crumbling in the centre here, with beautiful sharp edges. I decided to make this cake more of a dessert for myself by serving it with stewed raspberries and blackcurrants, with just a little sugar. The contrast of the buttery cake and the sharp berries was lovely. I couldn't really taste the vanilla, perhaps it's such a large cake that it needed more than I used. I was definitely keener on this cake now than when I first made it. The texture seems finer than in my previous photos, and perhaps my tastes have changed too. One of my colleagues commented that it had a subtle flavour - I'd agree with this, but it provides the perfect foil for the berries.