I ditched Butter =(

The amount of butter I consume confuses people often. Yes, I'm back on the topic of butter because recently at work, my colleagues and students were discussing the use of butter and I had to keep absolutely silent or I risk offending (and/or horrifying) most of them. I felt terribly guilty for not defending butter, but at the same time, butter really didn't have a place among health-conscious people. This time, the age-old question of whether butter should be melted or unmelted didn't even get a chance to come out. This time, it was more the basic question of "should we even HAVE butter".

I don't do food science. I don't know the first thing about polyunsaturated fats, or what good and bad fats are, but I choose to be blatantly ignorant when it comes to butter because even if butter is bad for me, I'll still stick with it through fat and thin. It's like we have this unhealthy relationship which I refuse to get out of, even if it means I have to work extra hard on the badminton courts.

I love baking with butter. Although sometimes it hurts when I have to melt butter (because time doesn't change a person- I still love my butter unmelted), I still like knowing there is butter in my food because no doubt in my mind, it adds so much to the taste of the end product. Then along comes this cheat's sponge cake that tastes so much like the honey castella cake which most kids from Hong Kong would have grown up with:

From baKEE

It's just not fair. How can a cake without butter or oil or any kind of polywhateveritis fat be this good?

From baKEE

And it's such a simple recipe you can modify it any way you like, sky's the limit really with such a basic sponge cake. It can be the base of your trifle, black forest cake, you can sandwich cream or fruits in between... or add honey like I did.

Instructions? 6 eggs separated. 1/2-2/3 cup sugar, squeeze of honey, 1 cup cake flour (I just used regular plain flour with a couple spoonful of cornflour). You really only need a whisk, two big bowls and a measuring cup. There are various ways of doing this, but I found my method (yep, my method, cos I didn't follow any of the instructions that other people wrote- you dare me to fail?) works best in keeping the cake light and fluffy.

One bowl: whisk all the sugar, honey and yolks together till pale yellow. Add the flour in 3 separate stages and incorporate each time. Your arms might toughen up a bit after all the whisking, but once all the flour is in there, the batter should be quite stiff. Second bowl: whisk the egg whites till they are at soft peaks and then fold into the yolk mixture in small amounts.

From baKEE

I continued to use my balloon whisk when "folding" the egg whites in only because I was too lazy to bring out a spatula (another thing for the dishwasher to wash), but hey, it all worked out good.

Pour into a lined baking tin, bang it on the counter a few times to get rid of large air bubbles and chuck into the oven (180 degrees) till it becomes tanned and puffed up. Yep, this thing grows like those superabsorbent polymer dinosaur toys in water. 

From baKEE

This isn't burnt. It's tanned. People look ridiculous if their fake tan is this colour, but it looks so good as a cake. Of course, it's not really a honey castella cake- that would take loads more effort than this to make, and way more ingredients, but you've got to taste this to understand why I'm befuddled- with no butter, how can it taste this good? #cue what is this sorcery.

I've made this cake twice so far- once for a colleague who cannot consume dairy, and another time for my mum. I'm having butter withdrawal now. Where is that stick of butter I had in the fridge....