Line the bottom of two 8 inch round, nonstick sandwich tins but don’t grease them – it helps with the rise.

Preheat the oven to 170 ° C. I like to cook for slightly longer on a lower temp or your cakes will peak and maybe even catch around the edges if too hot with this relatively high sugar proportioned cake.

Beat the butter and sugar for several minutes until very light and fluffy – with golden caster sugar keep going until you can’t feel any crystals of sugar if you rub your fingers together with some of the mixture as it is more granular than regular caster sugar.

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Crack in the eggs and sift over the flour, baking powder and salt then beat in gently until just combined. It will be a thick mixture. This is almost an “all in one” method but I find you just don’t get the volume if you don’t cream the butter and sugar separately before adding all the rest ingredients all in one go.

Divide between the tins and here’s the bit you will have to have some faith over as I’ve trialled it a lot and it really works but sounds odd. Spread the mixture up the sides of the tin so that it almost touches the top at the sides but it caved out in the centre – like an upside down volcano with only the thinnest scraping of batter on the very bottom middle of the tin. It will melt and cook evenly and very pleasingly flat.

Pop in the oven on the middle shelf or ever so slightly lower if you can. Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, the middle bounces back and the top is beautifully brown and flat.

Cool on a rack for 20 minutes in the tins – this is important as the cake needs to settle and firm up a little or risk your very light and fluffy, airy cake collapsing whilst still hot. Run a plastic knife around the edges of the tins and unmould when just warm and finish cooling on the rack this time out of their tins.