I love vanilla.  Vanilla ice cream, milk with vanilla and sugar (childhood favorite), vanilla custard, vanilla rice pudding, vanilla tapioca, I splash vanilla in my smoothies, or sometimes drop some into my coffee…you get the idea.  So when I saw this recipe on my favorite Food 52 I knew it was a must try.

Double Vanilla Butter Cake with Chantilly Cream

Butter…vanilla…cream?  The trifecta!  It is lovely, almost a pound cake but no quite, the recipe is a cross between a madeleine and a genoise.  It’s easy to make, a very simple straight forward cake, and of course what isn’t better with a dollop of lightly sweetened cream?  I had a wedge for breakfast with my coffee this AM…I also had two scrambled eggs because you know…you have to have protein with your cake.

I made a couple of adjustments to recipe.  I browned my butter, and since I didn’t have vanilla paste I scraped the seeds out of vanilla pod and added that to the batter instead.  I didn’t heat the eggs, I just pulled them out in the AM and let them sit at room temp.  Anyone who has worked in a professional kitchen knows the first thing you do every day is pull out flats of eggs and pounds of butter because in many recipes room temperature ingredients make a better cake or cookie.

I suggest making the cake the day before.  Recipes like this which rely on subtle taste better once they sit a bit, but not too long because then they get dry.