A few weeks ago I met my Dutch friend Peter who visited Vienna for a weekend. I got to know Peter last year while I was in Seoul in South Korea for the summer and I have not seen him ever since. I had such blast seeing Peter again. We went to my favorite café in Vienna and of course we had cake. We literally talked for hours and I enjoy nothing more than a good conversation. And if you meet me there is no escape that I will talk about cake. I had to face the sad fact that I did not know anything about Dutch pastries. This is such a shame because I missed out a lot in my cake life but Peter recommended me a website with Dutch recipes. I was overwhelmed by the recipes because all of them sounded so delicious and I did not know which recipe I should try out first. In the end I decided to make a Dutch buttercake [boterkoek] as my first Dutch cake recipe. I made the fancy version of the buttercake and made the cake with an almond filling (amandelspijs). The classic Dutch buttercake is a simple cake which is very easy to prepare and just a few ingredients are needed. But “oh my dear cake gods”, this cake is heavenly. There are no words how delicious this buttercake is. It is a dense cake and you can eat only a small slice of cake at a time, especially if you add the almond filling, but it so so good. I am so thrilled about my discovery of Dutch pastries and this makes me very happy. Thank you Peter!
Next on my Dutch recipe list are Kremtenbollen (raisins buns), Groninger Koek (spice cake) and Jodekoeken (shortbread cookies). After I tried out a few more Dutch recipes Peter has to revisit Vienna and I will force him to spend an entire day in my kitchen, taste all my baked goods and he has to judge if it tastes like real Dutch pastries.
Makes one cake (9 inch / 21 cm)

INGREDIENTS

Dough

  • 250 g pastry flour
  • 175 g granulated sugar
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 egg, medium size
  • 1 vanilla bean
  • 225 g unsalted butter

Almond paste (amandelspijs)

  • 150 g almond flour
  • 125 g powdered sugar
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 egg yolk

DIRECTIONS

  • Mix flour, sugar, salt, seeds of the vanilla bean and egg in a bowl. Cut the cold butter into cubes and add it to the mixture. Knead the mixture until it is a smooth dough.
  • Wrap the dough into plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  • Grease and flour a cake pan (21 cm / 9 inch).
  • If you prefer the classic version of the Dutch butter cake, press the entire dough into the cake pan. Brush the surface of the cake with the egg yolk. Then use the tines of a fork and make a plaid pattern.
  • Bake the cake for 30 minutes.
  • For the almond filling butter cake version: Mix almond flour, powdered sugar and egg white.
  • Divide the dough. Press one part of the dough into the cake pan. Spread the almond filling onto the dough. Roll out the second dough and cover the almond paste with the dough. Then brush the surface with the egg yolk and make the pattern with the knife and bake the cake for 30 minutes as well. 
  • The cake tastes best on the second and third day. Store the cake in a tin.