A butter cake is a cake in which one of the main ingredients is butter. Butter cake is baked with most basic ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and leavening agents such as (baking powder or baking soda). It is considered as one of the quintessential cakes in American baking. Butter cake originated from the English pound cake, which traditionally used equal amounts of butter, flour, sugar, and eggs to bake a heavy, rich cake.