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Until yesterday, I'd only ever seen nankhatai in photos on various blogs (most of them very, very beautifully shot photos, I might add). Never seen them in real life, never eaten any (not that I know of and not by that name), never baked any. Since Diwali is next week, and because I'd just bought a lovely big bag of pistachios recently, and also because our friends were going to drop by and I wanted to bake something for them with an Indian touch, I decided to make nankhatai with the pistachios and the last of my stash of saffron. The recipe I followed is on Nandita's Saffron Trail blog. My only two additions were pistachio nuts in the dough itself, and extra milk as the ghee alone was nowhere near enough to bind the mixture together to make a dough.
And what a good decision it was. I love saffron - although I don't use it often because it's expensive - and I love pistachios, and I know they're a flavour match made in heaven (fictitious place, obvs, but the match is very real and the flavours are very lovely!). These cookies are very moreish - they're not too sweet, the saffron flavour is awesome, the pistachios are delicious and the semolina gives the nankhatai a lovely crunch. Be sure to use fine semolina, though, otherwise, the nankhatai might have a sandy mouthfeel rather than crispness. Happy eating, people!
Recipe for: Kesar pista nankhatai (saffron pistachio cookies)
Ingredients:
1.5 cups plain flour
2.5 tbsp chickpea flour
1/2 tbsp fine sooji (semolina)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup slivered pistachio nuts
2 tbsp finely chopped pistachios (optional)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup melted ghee (clarified butter)
1/4 tsp saffron strands, crushed in a small mortar-pestle
Milk as required
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
2. Sift together the flours, semolina and baking soda in a medium bowl. Mix in the slivered pistachio nuts and set aside. Warm 2 tbsp of the milk and let the saffron steep in it for 5 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the ghee, powdered sugar and saffron-milk until smooth, then add the flour mixture. Add extra milk a tablespoon at a time until you can form a soft dough. Be careful not to add too much liquid.
4. Roll the dough into balls the size of large marbles and place on a cookie sheet lined with non-stick paper or foil, leaving a gap of about 1.5 inches. At this point, if you wish, you can make a dimple in the centre of each cookie with your thumb and sprinkle a pinch of the chopped pistachios. If not, just flatten each ball slightly and place in the preheated oven.
5. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the cookies are a pale brown, switching the tray around after 10 minutes so that they brown evenly.
6. Remove to a wire cooling rack. The cookies will crisp up as they cool.
7. Try not to eat all the nankhatai yourself.
I’m pretty sure I don’t have much to say in this post, so of course I’m going to try and say it in as many words as possible. It’s obligatory to do so, the First Law of Writing (except that it’s always been an unwritten law, ironically) which I am now vocalising via the written word. The self-styled “expert” analysts who contribute to newspapers, especially in the political and economic areas, are the most obvious propagators of this law. The less you have to say, the more verbose you get. You might have noticed that your favourite writer pretty much always leaves you wanting more. On the other hand, the boring ones just as predictably can lay an entire rainforest’s worth of trees to waste with just one article.
Now I’m beginning to feel like A A Gill, the food and restaurant critic of The Times. He’s supposed to review different restaurants but usually writes for more than half the article (every single time, too) about something completely irrelevant and as far off the topic of food and restaurants as... let’s say, as far off as Big Brother is from an intelligent programme. As one of his readers put it: “I think I finally have the hang of an AA Gill "restaurant review". Talk about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with restaurants (hernia operations, personal loves and loathes, politicians, etc.) and then, at the end, write the name, address and a brief, caustic opinion.
Louise, London, UK”
So, now that we have the “nothing much to say” out of the way, let me say a few brief words about this biscuit/cookie: It’s eggless, it’s nice, it was made by my cousin Hema during her visit to Shrewsbury, and she took it home with her so that her lucky parents could have a taste of her first baking efforts.
That’s all I really had to say in the first place.
Recipe for: Cranberry orange cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/8 cup milk
3 tbsp fresh orange juice
1 tbsp yogurt
1-1/2 cups plain/all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped nuts (we used pistachios and cashewnuts)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F.
2. Cream together the sugar and butter in a large bowl.
3. Stir in milk, orange juice and yogurt.
4. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
Add cranberries and nuts
and stir lightly into the dough.
4. Form dough into balls (approximate will do) with slightly wetted fingers and drop onto cookie sheet.
5. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until light brown around the edges.
Immediately remove from cookie sheet and cool.
Over the next few days - or weeks, depending on the levels of sloth and indifference - I'll be posting a few recipes of cookies and cakes that Hema (my cousin) and I baked. Well, mostly Hema, with me hovering around "instructing". Yes, that's what I like to call it. The first of these was eggless peanut butter cookies.
So here is a recipe for eggless cashew vanilla cookies. There arent any takers for cookies in my house, unless you count Hobnobs (chocolate-covered digestives) of which Pete is inordinately fond. I'm not likely to be making those, so I stand by my statement that there arent any takers for cookies in my house.
It's only because Hema was there that I made cookies at all. These were nice, but I think they would have been better with the cashews being lightly toasted first rather than used raw as I did. And also, be very sure to remove the cookies from the baking tray after 2 minutes - they will get increasingly more difficult to remove if they cool on the tray itself. You have been warned.
Recipe for: Cashew vanilla cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup plain/all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup yogurt (original recipe said to use cream)
4 tbsp chopped cashews (lightly toasted if you like)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
2. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and soda.
3. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
4. Add flour mixture and yogurt, stir in till well incorporated.
5. Mix in cashews.
6. Drop by tablespoons (or use lightly wetted fingers to shape into balls) on ungreased (yes, ungreased) cookie sheet 1-1/2 inches apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.
7. Cool 2 minutes in the oven, then immediately remove to racks. Cool and store in an airtight container.
My young cousin Hema is visiting from India, and she’s apparently determined to “learn cooking” from me. The irony is that I’m not doing much cooking at all at the moment because my mother’s here – I know, it’s not fair to leave it all to her, but the thing is, she’s at home all day and I am at work all day… so, given the circumstances, it all works out conveniently well for everybody (yes, especially me.) Anyway, I do cook on weekends, so I’m not taking total and unashamed advantage… or so I like to believe. (Kind readers, please don’t stick the needle of derision in my pathetic little bubble of denial!)
So the project for the day in the cookery department was a simple one, courtesy Hema – peanut butter cookies. It didn’t strike me to ask about her choice till later, although I remember thinking that it seemed a bit strange – well, very American, in other words. When I did ask her, eventually, where she’d eaten peanut butter cookies before, she replied that she never had. Then how did she come up with that suggestion? Apparently, because she likes peanut butter.
Oh. Right.
So peanut butter cookies it was. And in consideration of my mother shunning eggs and everything containing eggs, we made the cookies eggless.
Now I’ve never eaten peanut butter cookies before. I wasn’t even a fan of peanut butter till fairly recently, and even the jazzed up chilli-hot Indian-style “peanut chutney” didn’t quite tempt me. As for the American fascination with peanut butter-and-jam (I refuse to call it jelly) sandwiches, I’ve been known to accuse it of being weird… but everything comes full circle and I now am forced to admit that I’m rather partial to peanut-butter-and-orange-marmalade on toast… something in which I try not to indulge too often!
Anyway, to come back to the point, since I’m not burdened with a sweet tooth and there aren’t any takers for cookies in my house, I’ve never really tried my hand at baking cookies.
I’m actually going to deliberately deviate from the point now – fair warning, right? My first attempt at baking was a recipe for lemon cookies. The recipe seemed simple enough, so I beat and mixed and rolled the dough into balls and placed them on a tray and gave them spreading space - everything seemed to be going swimmingly well as I put the trays in the oven.
The recipe said to bake the cookies for 8 minutes; eight antsy minutes later, I checked the cookies – they were still soft, so back inside they went for another few minutes. They remained stubbornly soft 10 even more antsy minutes later, and I was certain that the recipe had got the baking time wrong. So I just went on baking them. Eventually when the cookies had firmed up through the centre (the edges had gone extremely brown – pretty much black - by then) to my satisfaction, I took the trays out. The recipe instructed me to let the cookies cool for 3-4 minutes before removing them from the tray, so I waited the requisite number of minutes, then tried to detach a cookie to taste it.
It didn’t budge.
I tried again with another cookie, trying to lift it off the tray.
The entire tray rose in the air, but the cookie stayed firmly attached to it.
I tried chipping them off off with various things – a spatula, a knife, a cake slice, even a chisel… but the cookies just crumbled into bits. Pete tasted the bits and said that they were nice (which was very kind of him, because those things were anything BUT nice)… but comforting though his words were, I wasn’t – and am not – as dumb as I looked, and I knew I had a first class disaster on my hands. Or on my trays, to be literal. So I dumped everything in the bin – cookies, crumbs, tray and all.
I blame the recipe, of course I do. I didn’t know that cookies firm up as they cool… why would I? I’d never had a proper oven, never done any baking… and the recipe didn’t think to mention that little fact. To be fair, I guess to experienced bakers, that particular fact is basic knowledge – so basic that they just assume everybody knows it. But I didn’t… so when the cookies felt soft, I assumed that they hadn’t baked enough. And so it turned out a recipe for disaster.
I didn’t try baking cookies for ages thereafter, so making these peanut butter cookies cookies was more or less a “first” for me and Hema both. I didn’t quite know how they would turn out, but one thing I knew for sure – I would stick to the baking time specified!
As it turned out, we must have underbaked the cookies a little, for they stayed just a wee bit soft in the centre even after cooling. But they tasted so good – slightly salty, somewhat sweet – that I don’t think anybody minded.
Recipe for: Eggless peanut butter cookies
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups AP flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup demerara sugar (or brown) + extra for sprinkling
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp water
2-3 tbsp milk
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C and line two baking sheets with non-stick paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornflour and water. Reserve.
2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Beat butter, peanut butter and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended.
4. Beat in both sugars.
5. Stir in half of the flour mixture.
6. Add cornflour mixture and continue mixing, then add the remaining flour mixture and stir it in.
At this point I found the dough to be very very dry, so I added milk, tbsp by tbsp and kneaded it until the dough could be rolled into a ball. (Or rather, my cousin did all this under my - ahem! - supervision!)
8. Roll the dough into 1" balls. Arrange the balls 1/2 inch apart on baking sheets (the cookies wont spread much).
With a fork, flatten the dough balls and make a criss-cross pattern on top.
9. Sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake in a 180C/350F oven for 15-16 minutes, until the cookies are dry on top.
10. Remove baking sheets from oven and let the cookies remain on the sheets for 3 minutes,
then remove to racks and let cool completely before storing in an airtight box.
After a long time I felt like baking something, and since Pete likes fruit cakes a lot, I decided I would try a new recipe - an eggless one because my mother was coming here (just for a day en route to Chennai). As with any cake recipe I try for the first time, no matter how simple it looks, I was a bit apprehensive about how the cake would turn out, given that it didnt involve eggs. (I've had a few disasters with eggless cakes, as regular readers might know!)
Luckily, fruitcakes are fairly forgiving in the sense that they dont have to be light and airy - a little denseness can be overlooked. But only a little. If a fruitcake feels heavy like a brick and looks like and overdone brick, my suggestion would be not to eat it, but to use it in some kind of construction - perhaps as part of the foundations if you're building a house. Or you could treat it as "dwarf bread", that wonderful baked item that makes its appearance in Terry Pratchett's books - dwarf bread is edible - just - and can be used as emergency rations as it lasts forever... but it is also hard enough to be used as a deadly weapon. Some fruitcakes I've eaten over the years could well have evolved from the Discworld's original dwarf bread!
However, to get back to my cake, this was a keeper of a recipe! The cake was moist and nicely chewy, with a little crunch from the addition of roughly chopped brazil nuts (because my pecans had gone rancid, unfortunately. I hate when that happens.) It was lovely, and the texture and flavour has only become better in the three days since I baked it. Plus, as an added bonus, it's easy to make.
I'll have to admit one thing, though... the cake isnt photogenic, especially when cut into chunks. It's so VERY knobbly and bulging in all directions with fruit and nuts that I just couldnt take a pretty picture of it. I tried and tried but finally had to settle for the piece as it was - bulge, bumps, warts and all. Either that or not post a photo at all, which is unthinkable except in the direst of situations (viz, if there isnt a photo at ALL! *gasp*).
So please, dear readers, dont judge a cake by its outer appearance. Dont bring it out for guests, if you're the kind who only showcases the prettiest and bestest of your attempts in company. But DO try a piece of the cake with a cup of coffee at home, share it with your uncritical loved ones, shove it at family and friends... but do, do, DO try it! It's a pretty gorgeous cake!
The original recipe was apparently taken from a vegetarian cookbook and it says that to make this cake completely vegan, you can substitute the butter with vegan margarine.
Recipe for: Eggless fruit cake
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp mixed spice
2/3 cup margarine
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
3 cups dried fruit (I used sultanas and currants)
1/4 cup chopped brazil nuts
1 cup + 2 tbsp water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Method:
1. Grease a 7" square or round tin and line with greaseproof paper to come an inch above sides of the tin. Spray lightly with Pam.
2. Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed spice.
3. Rub in margarine, then mix in brown sugar.
4. Stir the fruit and nuts into the mixture.
5. Make a hollow in the centre of the mixture, pour in the water, and stir in lightly.
6. Warm 2 tbsp water slightly and pour over the bicarbonate of soda, then stir it thoroughly into the mixture (but dont beat).
7. Turn mixture into prepared tin.
8. Bake cake at 180°C for an hour or till it is cooked.
Leave in the tin for 10-15 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Cut into pieces when cool.
My herbs - curly and flat leaf parsley, Italian and Thai basil, oregano, mint, thyme and rosemary - are all growing like crazy at the moment, and I'm throwing them into practically everything I make, to try and keep up with their profusion. It's lovely to have fresh herbs handy, but somewhat difficult to know what to do with them since I dont need to use them all every day! (If only I could grow coriander in the amounts I need - but that's not really feasible, as it's the one herb which I DO tend to use a whole lot).
One of the recipes I tried out today was scones with fresh herbs. It's a quick, painless - and eggless - recipe and believe me, the scones are LOVELY! I'm sure you could add some chopped green chillies to give your tastebuds a kick-start, but I didnt because of the rather gentler palates around me!
The scones are gorgeous served warm, split and spread with garlic butter, as an accompaniment for soup. (Mine was courgette-mint soup - recipe coming). I also tried some with celery chutney as a dip - yummy!
Recipe for: Five-herb eggless scones
Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp butter
1/3 cup milk (or as required)
2 tbsp fresh finely chopped herbs (thyme, rosemary, parsley, oregano, basil)
Centre: Oregano; Clockwise from top right: Rosemary, thyme, Thai basil, curled parsley
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 220C and lightly flour a baking sheet
2. Sift the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl.
3. Rub in the butter till the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
4. Mix in the herbs.
5. Gradually add enough milk to make a light, spongy dough.
6. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead till smooth.
7. Roll it to 1” thick. Cut into rounds with a floured 2” cutter, if desired. (I just cut them through with a pizza cutter, so I got four triangles and two square shapes!).
8. Place the scones on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or till well risen and golden brown.
9. Serve warm, split and buttered if you like, along with soup.
It's always a pleasure when an eggless cake recipe turns out to be damn near perfect. Even better when it's an orange cake, because I think that the flavour of oranges in cakes and desserts (not to mention the fruit itself) is probably one of the loveliest in the world. I think so, anyway.
So that's why, whenever I come across a new orange cake recipe, I tend to want to try it out, even if I've already found one that works perfectly. There's no such thing as perfection, right? There's always the possibility of something even better around the corner. (That's a disastrous attitude for marriage and relationships, leading to much hokery-pokery, but definitely a positive trait when it comes to cookery!)
When it comes to icing this cake, take a tip from me and DONT BE IMPATIENT! Wait for the cake to cool completely. Make sure you dont add too much orange juice (or Grand Marnier, if you're using it) to the icing and make it runny. WAIT for the icing to set before you cut the cake - putting the cake in the refrigerator for 30 minutes is worth it.
If you look at the photos I've taken, you will most likely notice that I didnt follow a WORD of my own advice, although I should have known better. I was too impatient to wait for the cake to cool completely. I added too much orange juice and didnt bother to rectify it with more icing sugar. I most certainly didnt wait for the icing to set before I cut the cake - which is why you see the icing runnels on the cut side of the cake... not the best effect. Luckily, the cake tasted absolutely gorgeous - moist without being heavy and oh SO orangey!
Anyway. Those who cant do, teach. Those who cant teach, preach. So... do as I say, folks, not as I do! :)
Recipe for: Eggless iced orange cake
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice (with pulp, no problem)
1/3 cup sunflower oil
2 tbsp grated orange peel/zest
1/2 cup golden sultanas
For the icing (mix together to make a thick pourable icing)
3 cups superfine (icing sugar)
2 tbsp (or as required) orange juice or Grand Marnier
1 drop deep orange food colouring (optional)
1/2 tsp orange zest
Method:
1. Grease an 8" round cake pan. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder until well mixed.
3. Add the oil and orange zest.
4. Then pour in the orange juice.
5. Stir just enough to combine the ingredients without beating - dont overstir - and immediately pour into the prepared baking pan.
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes or till the cake tests done and is golden brown on top.
7. Cool completely before pouring the icing over the top of the cake. Let it drip down the side in runnels.
If the icing seems a bit soft, put the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes before cutting.
Yesterday evening I was sorting out some of the hundreds of pages of dessert and baking recipes that I've printed out over the years - and yeah, only a fraction of them have been tried and posted. The others were printed out at various moments when I was feeling energetic and optimistic (not to mention, overenthusiastic) about trying complicated gateaux or gourmet dessert recipes...
But in the end, all I've ever done is read through them with just two thoughts running through my head over and over during the reading process.
The first thought: "Wow, that sounds so fantastic, too bad it's so complicated". And the next one: "Too bad I dont know anybody who would make it..." - and most important, this - "...and call me over to taste it!... followed by the first thought, followed yet again by the second thought (ofc with the all-important second part of the second thought)... and so on. You get the idea. I could probably go on like this all evening, so the expedient thing would be to agree that yes, you get the idea. :)
Anyway, I came across this recipe that had the intriguing title of "Amazon cake". Amazon cake? I thought. Why Amazon cake? So I quickly read through the recipe, which was ridiculously simple and, better yet, didnt require eggs. Ah-HA. The printout said that the recipe was from The New York Times, adapted from Cafe Beaujolais by Margaret Fox and John S Bear. That's all I know about it. (It never got around to explaining why Amazon, so I remain intrigued. And ignorant.)
So of course, since chocolate cake is the all-time favourite of my family, I made it. Easy as easy as can be and the cake was quite lovely. You wouldnt have known that it didnt contain eggs. I cut down on the sugar in the cake from 1 cup to slightly less than 3/4 cup, but that's because I was planning to frost it. If you dont want to frost it, use 1 heaping cup sugar for the cake.
The crumb was moist but not dense, and the end product disappeared like magic.
The Amazin' Amazon cake is here to stay!
Recipe for: Amazin' Amazon eggless chocolate cake
1-1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp oil (corn oil, canola, vegetable or sunflower oil)
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 cup cold water
Method:
1. Heat the oven to 350F (180C). Grease a round 9" baking pan.
2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, sugar and salt in a medium bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, vanilla and vinegar with 1 cup cold water.
4. Then add the dry ingredients (flour mix) and whisk it all together, until the batter is lump free.
5. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or till the cake tests done.
6. Cool before removing from the pan. Frost the cake when it is completely cool (any frosting is fine), or just sift icing sugar over the top before serving.
Another of those long goods-train-like, really catchy names that I'm so good at manufacturing. But this time, consider ooey-gooey to be the adjective that qualifies the noun (hey, I did English Literature in college, can you tell?). The noun here being the actual title for this post (and the cake) - which is, of course, pineapple pudding cake. Not too bad, that. Straightforward and factual. With a bit of English grammar thrown in gratis.
Considering that I hadn't really had much faith in the outcome of the recipe (I'm a major Doubting Thomas, me!), I was rather pleased with the result. I got the recipe off a lycos food group that I subscribe to - that is to say, I subscribed looooong back and didnt get around to unsubscribing. Partly because I couldnt be bothered, and partly because once in a while, I manage to salvage a little drop from the massive waves of recipes that crash into my inbox every day.
Are you wondering if this pineapple pudding cake is one of those salvaged drops? Yes, sort of. Sometimes those drops of water turn out to be little sparkly gems, and sometimes they're just - well, a recipe that manages to work. This is one of the latter kind... not quite a gem, but not dross either. That's my opinion. My mother and Pete - especially Pete - thought it was incredibly good.
I had serious doubts about the glaze (for want of a better name) for the cake. The cake itself wasnt bad, for an eggless one, using the one-bowl method. But the recipe said the glaze had to be poured boiling hot over the hot cake. I had mental visions of the cake promptly disintegrating into a soggy mess, so I hesitated an awful lot before going ahead. My mother didnt help by peering at the contents of the saucepan - which was bubbling merrily, a mixture of evaporated milk, a bit of condensed milk, margarine, sugar and chopped nuts - and saying in an extremely doubtful tone: "Are you going to pour THAT over the cake?"
I suppose that did it. I consider myself at perfect liberty to second-guess instructions in other people's recipes and query methods given in cookery books - but to be second-guessed about something I'm making (even if from some unknown recipe) is not on.
So before anyone else could convey their doubtful disbelief, I promptly poured the hot glaze over the hot cake - but then I was too chicken to follow through on the consequences. Basically, after pouring the glaze, I turned my back on the cake, switched off the kitchen light and went off to watch a movie.
Did I think about the cake? Nope. Not at all.
A few hours later, I went to check on the cake somewhat fearfully, expecting to see a disintegrated mess on the plate - but to my surprise, the cake was still standing. All the excess glaze that had overflowed on the plate had been soaked up by the cake itself.
Thrilled to see the whole thing still in one piece, I let Pete cut himself a slice. It was ooey and gooey and more pudding than cake - he had it with honey vanilla icecream and pronounced the combination delectable. When I tried it, I found it rather too sweet for my liking - but my sweet tooth is very quickly satisfied, so I'm not the best judge.
The final verdict is: If you like gooey moist sweet cakes, this is the one for you. The glaze sort of caramelized (if that's the right term) to a darkly sweet texture - you could certainly say that the sum of the parts added to more than the whole! Or something like that, anyway.
Recipe for: Pineapple pudding cake
Ingredients:
For the cake:
1 cup crushed pineapple with juice (NOT syrup)
1/2 cup white sugar
1-1/2 cups plain flour
3 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp demerara sugar (or use brown sugar)
For glaze or topping:
1/2 cup evaporated milk
3 tbsp condensed milk
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Method:
1. In a large bowl, mix all the cake ingredients together (except the demerara/brown sugar) until the flour is incorporated. The batter will be quite thick.
2. Scrape batter into a greased 6" round cake pan. Even it out with the back of a wetted spoon.
3. Then sprinkle the demerara or brown sugar over the top.
4. Bake at 180C (350F) for about 45 mnutes or till the cake tests done and has pulled away slightly from the sides.
5. When the cake has been in the oven for about 35 minutes, make the glaze/topping. Put all the topping/glaze ingredients in a small pan.
6. Bring to a boil on medium heat, stirring till the butter/margarine has melted completely, and let it bubble gently for a couple of minutes.
7. When the cake is done, turn it out onto a serving plate.
8. While it is still hot, pour the hot topping on the cake.
9. Let it cool completely (preferably leave it overnight) before cutting. Serve with vanilla icecream.
