Butter Cake tried and tested recipe

This is a very easy to do cake. In fact I would recommend this to anyone who is starting because this gives a good foundation to whatever cakes you may want to bake in the future. It tastes good as well which is huge plus. The time needed is also very manageable too, unlike cheesecakes which may take you over two hours just for the baking part alone. The below recipe is a for a 1kg cake.
Ingredients:
250gm Butter or Margarine. (Salted or unsalted, your preference)
220gm of castor sugar (250gm for sweet tooth and 180gm for less sweet)
250gm of Self-Raising Flour (MFM or Blue Key, both ok)
4 A-sized Eggs (60gm+ / egg)
Two teaspoons of vanilla essence. (any usual brand would do)
If you are using butter, please let it cool at room temperature before you start to use it.
Blend butter, castor sugar and the vanilla essence first. Once you can see it is well blended, slowly sieve in the self-raising flour. Once the mixture is well mixed, beat in the eggs one after another, always ensure the first egg is well dissolved before the second and so forth. The whole process for these 4 eggs should be just within 3 minutes. Leave the mixture aside.
Preheat Oven to 180 degree celsius for 6 minutes.
Grease a 8 / 9 inch baking pan. Pour the mixture into the baking pan.
Put the baking pan into the oven, set the time as 40 minutes. When reach 40 minutes, test the middle of the cake with a cake tester. If it comes out clean, cake is done. If not, set for another 5 minutes and try again.
Despite many recipes saying 45 minutes, I found that sometimes 45 minutes would cause the cake to be too dry. Then again, some oven needed up to 50 minutes, so this is quite subjective. Please adjust accordingly with your oven.
Once done, there is no need to take the cake out. Let it cool down for an hour or two before taking it out. You may cut one slice for your loved one. I think that would be the “sweetest” cake he / she has ever tasted. Happy Baking.
Note: Recipe does not include making the marble swirl. If you really want, then a very simple way is to take out one huge scoop of the mixture, put in 2 tablespoons of chocolate and mix them. Once done, leave aside. Pour half of your cake mixture into the baking pan. Then pour in your chocolatey mixture and spread them across the cake mixture. Then pour the remaining half into the baking pan and you are ready to bake the cake.
Want to bake a cheesecake instead? Try a tested recipe here. Baked Cheesecake. You do not need the water bath method!