Vanilla Dream Cake

at sprüngli, the local confiseur, one of my favorite products is a vanilla bean coated truffle. it’s not a vanilla yellow, but a vanilla black, so much vanilla is incorporated into it. so much so, that i inofficially dubbed it “the vanilla bomb”. strangely, they’re a seasonal produce though, so i am not able to indulge in my vanilla craving whenever i feel like it. so i had to make my own cake. one that could take it up with the vanilla bombs from sprünglig. it had to be a very intense vanilla one. this cake here did the job: a double vanilla cake, that’s infused with a heavy vanilly flavoured syrup. vanilla squared, so to say. and really just so good you have to name it “the vanilla dream cake”. i think i’ll just stick to this for my vanilla addiction until, one fine day, the bombs are back at sprüngli.

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vanilla dream cake
for one round 17-20 cm cake pan

ingredients:
300 g soft butter, room temperature
300 g extra fine cane sugar
6 eggs, broken up
410 g flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch salt
6 tbsp. milk
3 tbsp. vanilla bean paste

for the syrup: 
150 ml water
115 g extra fine cane sugar
2 tbsp. vanilla bean paste
1 vanilla bean, slitted lengthwise & extracted

directions:
preheat the oven to 160 c / 320 f. grease a round spring pan with butter, then line the sides of the pan with a sleeve of baking paper, so that the cake can rise to double the height of the cake, approximately. cream the butter with a hand mixer, add sugar and stir some more until fluffy and light. add eggs little by little. sieve in flour and baking powder, add salt and stir to combine. carefully fold in milk and vanilla bean paste. fill into the pan and bake for 1.5 hours on the lowest level. insert a needle to see if the cake is done: when it comes out clean you’re good to go.

for the syrup, heat water, sugar, vanilla bean paste and vanilla bean in a small pan, until sugar has dissolved. remove from the heat.

as soon as the cake comes out of the oven, pierce with a long needle or skewer, all the way through to the bottom of the cake. spoon by spoon, baste the cake with the vanilla syrup. you can do this while it’s still in the pan and hot. make sure the cake soaks up the liquid nicely. let cool completely, then remove from the pan. can be served for up to 5 days, as the syrup makes it really moist inside.