This is an Italian cake that is served dusted with powdered sugar. This cake is a light, slightly crumble cake and is flavored with vanilla bean seeds, orange zest, and lemon zest, you will need a 9 inch 23 centimeters cake tin that is buttered and floured. For the dry ingredients, you will sift in a bowl all-purpose flour, baking powder and cornflour then combine them and set them aside.

In a large bowl, combine softened butter with sugar, you can use a hand mixer to do this and once softened, add the zest and vanilla bean into the butter mixture and mix those in as well. Add the egg yolks in one at a time while mixing after each addition. In another bowl, add two eggs and beat them then add sugar while beating until the mixture thickens.

Pour in about half of the egg mixture into the batter and add in half of the flour mixture and mix those in until almost combined then add the remaining egg mixture and fold that in with the remaining flour mixture. Once the batter is well-formed and no flour mixture is visible, add the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes and if the top starts to brown before the cake is well baked, you can cover the top with aluminum foil.

Taste the cake with a skewer to make surer it is well baked after 45 minutes then take it out of the oven and let it sit for 20 minutes before removing the cake. Let the cake cool completely then for the traditional way of serving this cake, you will dust the top with icing sugar then slice.

Ingredients;

  • 170g(3/4 cup) softened butter
  • 170g(1 3/8 cups) icing sugar, plus more for sifting on top
  • 40g(3 tbsp) granulated or caster sugar
  • 100g (3 1/2 oz)cake/pastry flour(plain flour will be fine too)
  • 70g(2 1/2 oz)cornflour
  • 1 tsp(4g) baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 80g egg yolks(use 4 yolks)
  • 2 medium eggs
  • zest of one orange
  • zest of one lemon
  • seeds from one vanilla bean.

Instructions;

  1. Preheat the oven to 170C/340F.
  2. Grease a 9 inch/23 cm springform pan and flour it too, discarding excess flour, so that the flour coats the entire interior of the pan.
  3. Place the butter, salt, and icing sugar into a bowl and beat to a creamy consistency.
  4. Add the vanilla seeds, orange and lemon zest and beat to combine.
  5. Add the egg yolks(one at a time) and beat to combine to a soft, creamy consistency.
  6. In a separate bowl place the whole eggs and the granulated sugar and whisk until the eggs are thick and creamy and have increased in volume.
  7. Mix the flour, baking powder and cornflour together, and sift into a bowl.
  8. Add half the egg mixture to the creamed butter mixture and stir in, adding half flour mixture.
  9. Gently fold the eggs and flour into the mixture.
  10. Add the remaining egg mixture and fold it in.
  11. Add the remaining flour mixture and fold in.
  12. Put the batter into the cake pan and spread it evenly across the base.
  13. Bake in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes, covering the top with aluminum foil after 30 minutes if the cake seems to be browning too quickly. Test with a skewer to ensure the center is cooked.