Boterkoek (Dutch Butter Cake)

Boterkoek asks almost nothing of the cook and gives back a great deal. It is barely a recipe — equal weights of butter, sugar and flour, an egg, sometimes a whisper of almond — pressed flat into a tin and baked into a single dense golden round. There is nowhere to hide in a cake this plain, which is exactly why it is so good, and why the butter you choose is the whole decision.

A northern loyalty

Though it is baked across the Netherlands, boterkoek is claimed most fiercely by Friesland and the dairy north, where butter has always been abundant and good. The Frisians take their butter cakes seriously, and a proper boterkoek there is a matter of local pride, sold in flat rounds at every bakery and set out whenever coffee is poured. Its rise as an everyday cake belongs to the nineteenth century, when sugar and good butter were finally cheap enough to bake something this rich for no occasion at all.

The underbake

The single technique that separates a great boterkoek from a merely nice one is knowing when to stop. It must come out of the oven looking not quite done — the edges set and gold, the centre still soft and faintly wobbling. Cooled in the tin, that soft middle firms into the dense, chewy, almost fudgy texture that is the entire point. Bake it through and you have made shortbread by mistake.

Boterkoek is butter given just enough flour to hold its shape — no more, and gloriously so.

Keep the mixing brief so the crumb stays tender, glaze the top to a deep shine, and mark it with the traditional fork lattice. Cut into small wedges — it is very rich — and served with coffee, it is one of the most quietly satisfying things the Dutch kitchen makes.