Spar Dutch Butter Cake (Pound)

The Boterkoek is the most purely Dutch of all Dutch cakes — a flat, dense, intensely buttery single-layer cake made with nothing but flour, roomboter, sugar, and egg, with a chewy, almost shortbread-adjacent texture that is completely unlike any other baking tradition.

Why Boterkoek Is Uniquely Dutch

The ratio in a true boterkoek is approximately 1:1 flour to butter by weight — a butter content that would be considered excessive in any other baking tradition. This produces a cake that is not cakey in the normal sense: dense, chewy at the edges, and with a characteristic slight dampness in the centre that the Dutch specifically prize over a fully baked-through texture.

Ingredients

Wheat flour, roomboter (min. 80% dairy butter, 45% of total recipe), sugar, egg, almond extract, salt. Contains gluten, milk, eggs. May contain traces of tree nuts.

Serving

Cut into wedges or squares. Best at room temperature. Classic accompaniment: a cup of strong filter coffee (no milk — the boterkoek provides richness enough). In Zeeland tradition, served at coffee time on Sunday mornings. A slice reheated briefly in a warm oven (150°C, 5 minutes) restores the fresh-baked texture.

Storage

Store in an airtight tin at room temperature for up to 5 days. Freezes well for up to 1 month.