Dear friends, we have achieved sugar cake. 
Brown Sugar Cake
serves 12- 16
Note: This is a variation on what is known as 1-2-3-4 cake (1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 4 eggs). Of course, if you bake by weight, the 1-2-3-4 name isn't all that useful, but somehow it's not quite the same when you convert it to ounces (8-16-13-8 cake?), and don't even ask me for a working mnemonic for the metric equivalents.
8 oz. (1 cup or 2 sticks) butter, softened
1 pound light brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract*
13 ounces (3 dip-and-sweep cups) flour*
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
*For today's cake, instead of vanilla extract, I used vanilla brandy, which I make by steeping used vanilla bean hulls in a bottle of mid-priced cognac. I used to just throw all of my used beans into the bottle until I realized I had so many in there that I couldn't actually pour the brandy out. Either works well, and each imparts their own flavor to the cake. Also, for the flour, I used pastry flour, which has a lower protein content than all-purpose flour, and thus yields a softer, more tender crumb, but all-purpose flour will still make a delicious cake, just one with a bit more body to it.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 12-cup Bundt pan (a 10-cup will also work, but be careful not to overfill) and dust it with fine dry breadcrumbs.
Beat the butter about 1 minute until soft. Add the brown sugar and salt and beat until light and sand-colored, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix in.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix well. Add to the wet ingredients in thirds, alternating with the buttermilk (i.e. flour, buttermilk, flour, buttermilk, flour). I usually give everything one good stir once the bowl is taken off the mixer, as it's a real disappointment to find a big clump of unmixed butter and sugar after you get the cake into the pan.
Pour the batter into the cake pan. Pass a spatula over the surface of the cake to make sure the batter is evenly distributed in the pan. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 55-60 minutes, or until done. (When the cake is done, a cake tester will emerge clean from the cake. If you pull the cake from the oven and hear fairly consistent bubbling noises coming from the cake, put it back in the oven and check it at 5 minute intervals. When the bubbling is very, very faint, the cake is done.) Let the cake rest in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it onto a cooling rack. The crust may be a bit damp, but it will dry and take on a nice crunch as the cake cools.
Everything I said about this cake two weeks ago is still true.