BRITTANY QUATRE QUARTS
A cake for total beginnersBrittany’s Quatre Quarts (Four Quarters) cake is a French version of the pound cake – a cake for total beginners and a great place to start if you have no knowledge of baking. All you need is 4 simple ingredients plus one flavouring of your choice.
INGREDIENTS
Eggs
Sugar
Salted butter
All purpose flour
Flavouring of your choice
Use around 10ml / 2 teaspoons per egg liquor of choice (Grand Marnier, rum, cognac, kirsch, Cointreau, etc.) Add a teaspoon of grated citrus (optional) or simply use a vanilla extract. You will have to blend it with a bit of milk (same as above, 10ml / 2 teaspoon per egg).
NOTES
This is one of the many variants of the quatre quarts as everyone tends to add their own twist to it. I recommend trying different versions and see what you prefer. Using baking powder instead of adding beaten egg whites will make the cake less dense. You can also use whole eggs and beat them with the sugar for a long time until they double in volume then continue with the rest of recipe.
The method: weigh your eggs (out of the shell) and use the same weight for each ingredient in the video. I had 160 grams / 5.6 oz of eggs and I used that same measure all the other ingredient, so 160 grams of sugar, 160 grams of salted butter and 160 grams of all purpose flour. Regardless of how many eggs you use, always base your ingredient measurement on the weight of the eggs.
PROCEDURE
1. Choose how many eggs you wish to use, break them and separate the yolks and whites and place each of them in a separate bowl. Weigh them to ascertain their total weight.
2. Weigh out the same weight of sugar, flour and butter.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 200 C (400F) (conventional, not fan forced).
4. Grease the cake mould.
5. Melt the butter on a low heat. Once melted, turn off the heat.
6. Place the egg whites in a bowl, add salt and a squeeze of lemon and beat with a mixer on high speed until the whites are a stiff foam. Reserve in the fridge.
7. Place the egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat on a medium speed until whitish. Still beating, add the butter little by little (waiting until each amount is incorporated before adding the next bit), add the flour in the same way, and then the flavouring.
8. Slowly stir in the egg whites until fully incorporated.
9. Pour the mixture into the mould and then cook in the oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180C (356F) and cook for a further 25 minutes. 10. Wait 5 minutes before removing the cake from the mould.