behomeforT: Dutch Butter Cake ("Boterkoek")

There are quite a few things I miss now I live in Australia. One of them are Dutch cookies. I'm not saying Australian cookies are bad. I absolutely love Lamingtons and Melting Moments. But I do miss the choice you have in Holland. There are so many different cookies! And you always get one cookie when you order a cup of coffee or a cup of tea.

Boterkoek is one of the cookies I really miss. It's dense, soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, and it just melts in your mouth. I did not realise it is so easy to make! I wish I had a family recipe I could use, but I cannot recall my grandma's making boterkoek. Fortunately there are ton's of buttercake recipes on the internet, and someone else's grandma came up with this recipe, which I have slightly amended.

Ingredients
-2/3 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons almond extract
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- roasted almonds

The Recipe
Heat the butter in the microwave and mix with the sugar and the almond extract in a medium bowl. Add beaten egg (reserve a little bit) and mix the flour and baking powder bit by bit with the wet ingredients until the mixture becomes dough like.

Put the dough in a 20cm by 20cm square pan. Make sure the pan is non-stick and greased properly. Spread out the mixture evenly and make a pattern, starting by carving a "cross" in the cake, and then carve more lines evenly. Make an "almond flower" by aligning almonds in the middle like a flower and pressing them into the dough.

Brush the beaten egg over the dough and almonds and put in the oven on 180 degrees for 25 minutes. The cake will be hard on the outside and very dense. It will taste better after a night in the fridge.

I "accidentally" made two cakes....

Enjoy!