Invention Test: How to bake a butter cake with no butter!!

Ok, this came from an idea i had to make a basic butter cake, after talking to Saskia in Belgium.  But looking thru the fridge i couldn't see any butter. But i have grape seed oil, so i decided to use that instead.

Normally in a butter cake you would cream the butter and sugar together in the first step. but it's a little hard to do that with oil, so i decided to use egg yolks, 3 in fact.  The remaining egg whites could be used at the end of the recipe to lighten the batter.

The recipe I came up with:

3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup of castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups of sifted soft plain flour + 2 tsp baking powder (or use 2 cups of self raising flour and no b.p.)
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
pinch salt
1 cup of milk
150ml grape seed oil (or neutral vegetable oil such as canola)

method
cream sugar and egg yolks together
add vegetable oil, vanilla and mix
sift in the flour, baking powder, salt and bicarb soda. mix well
Add cup of milk, slowly mixing through until the batter is smooth and no lumps
Fold in softly beaten egg whites using a large metal spoon
Pour into a greased cake tin, about 20cm in diameter
Bake for 50 minutes at 170deg

butter topping

i managed to find a small knob of butter in the back of the fridge, so may as well use it to top the cake
try this
2 tbsp butter
2.5 tbsp castor sugar, or to taste
1/2 tsp coffee powder
1 tbsp hot water

cream butter and sugar, add coffee and hot water, keep mixing for a minute

this is a yummy cake, serve warm straight from the oven with butter topping melting all over it, like a sauce.  base, sides and top golden brown and crispy.  perfect with morning coffee (my 2nd)

now the keyboard is sticky

:)