Name: Boeterkoek (Butter Cake)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 0
Ingredients: 1 cup butter, NOT Margarine; 1 cup sugar; 2 cups white flour; 1 beaten egg; 1 tsp baking powder; 1 tsp almond extract

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This Boterkoek recipe (or butter cake) is a delicious and hearty Dutch cake. Full of delicious butter and topped with crunchy almond slivers, this unique and tasty dessert is perfect for the holidays or for any time you need a sweet pick-me-up!

Traditional Dutch Almond Butter Cake cooling just out of the oven. — This delicious Boterkoek recipe makes a buttery cake with lots of almond flavor. You’ll love this for holiday gatherings!

Why You’ll Love Almond Butter Cake

Here’s a smashingly simple treat – my Boterkoek Recipe, or almond butter cake. It’s a Dutch tradition in my family. My sons have been enjoying this cake for as long as they can remember. We make this every Christmas.

We actually make about 8 or 10 of these cakes. Friends love receiving a Boterkoek at Christmas time and they make a great hostess gift too!

This almond butter cake is a recipe that my Mom made for us when I was growing up – and boy, does it taste good! If you like the flavour of almonds, you will love this Boterkoek recipe.

Ingredients Needed for This Boterkoek Recipe

Ingredients and supplies for Boterkoek on a table. — All the ingredients and greased pie plates ready to get started.

butter – the star of this cake!
sugar – makes your almond butter cake nice and sweet.
white flour – another kind of flour can be substituted, but white flour works best here.
egg – you’ll need 1 for the cake itself and another to beat and eggwash the top of your cake.
baking powder – helps give your cake some volume.
almond extract – melds perfectly with the butter and gives your cake a subtly sweet, nutty flavor.
slivered almonds – for extra decoration, flavor, and texture.

How to Make Boterkoek Dough

Butter and sugar creamed together in a bowl. — Be sure to cream together your butter and sugar really well to avoid crunchy sugar crystals!

Cream the butter and sugar together well. Add one egg and mix again. Adding one of our hen’s eggs makes this batter so yellow and pretty! Love those dark yolks from our chickens.
After everything is well blended, add the flour and baking powder.
Start mixing it together – you will find you have quite a thick dough (for a cake), but that’s perfect. Just keep mixing the flour in.
If your batter seems a little thick, don’t worry! Just keep combining the dry ingredients and trust the process.
Then add the almond extract – I like adding it when I find the dough getting hard to mix together.
When your dough is well mixed, split it between two 9 inch pie plates. I like using the tin foil pie plates, as we like to give so many of these away to friends.

Boterkoek batter split between two pie tins. — Separate out your batter evenly. You may also want to make lots of these almond butter cakes at the same time!

Spreading the Dough and Baking

Here’s where you need to take some extra time with this recipe! Use a butter knife and begin pressing that dough down. Spread the dough out to the edges and take your time. Not too much pressure, just slide the knife across the top of the dough, pressing slightly.
Once you have the dough out to the edges and quite even, use the back of a spoon to smooth the top of the cake. Use a light touch!
To really perfect this Boterkoek recipe, be sure to spend the time smoothing down the batter. It’ll look so perfect once it’s baked!
Got it all smooth? Take a beaten egg and a pastry brush and very lightly brush the top of the cake with just a bit of the egg. You will not use all of the egg! Then sprinkle slivered almonds on top.
Bake at 350 for 25 – 30 minutes, depending on your oven.

Almond slivers pressed into the top of smoothed out Boterkoek batter. — Adding almond slivers brings out the almond flavor and gives your cake an added crunch.

I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like this Christmas treat! Try this Boterkoek recipe and maybe you’ll make it a tradition yourself. Enjoy!

More Sweet Recipes

Our entire Country Living in a Cariboo Valley Recipe Collection can be found here, and here are some more recipes hand-picked for you!

If you love Gingerbread, come over and grab my Gingerbread Boy recipe – a real treat at Christmas time!
Fireball Pumpkin Pie is a fantastic dessert to enjoy during the fall months.
And for something more summery, this Lemon Loaf Cake with Rosemary is a light and tangy option.