I didn’t write down a recipe for this, but basically:
– make passionfruit gummy bears (passionfruit puree & gelatin)
– make passionfruit curd (I used Nik Sharma’s recipe, available online)
– layer with ladyfinger cookies, berries, sherry if you like, and whipped heavy cream (no need for added sugar here)
– remember to chill 4 hours or so before serving
For the fruit, I used halved strawberries to make the pretty pattern on the outside edge, and filled in inside with fruit thawed from frozen — I think it was Cascadia’s cherries, blueberries, and strawberries.
Honestly, the gummies are fun to eat straight up, but maybe not the best textural element to add to a trifle — they stand out a bit more than I want, so not sure I’ll do this again, unless it’s for a kid’s party. It did delight Kavi.
I made Sri Lankan Love Cake for the Patreon boxes, and I have just a little left for the upcoming flash sale on Saturday. This batch is a little unusual, because I had a lot of pistachio on hand and not much cashew, so I tried making it with pistachio. Still tasty, but I don’t think I’d recommend the switch, as it does come out just a touch drier, I think. Delicious with a nice hot cup of milk tea, though. Original recipe below:
Love Cake
(two hours, including baking time; serves dozens)
Some say this Portuguese-derived cake was baked to win the hearts of suitors, while others say it’s because of the labor of love involved in all the cutting, chopping and grinding of the fruits, nuts, and spices (much easier these days with access to a food processor). But regardless, it tastes like love: sweet, tangy, and fragrant. My mother says it doesn’t taste right without the crystallized pumpkin, which you can find at Indian grocery stores, though honestly, I like it just as well with the candied ginger. A perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea.
8 ounces butter, softened, plus more for greasing
16 ounces raw unsalted cashews
10 ounces fine granulated sugar
10 egg yolks
Zest of two limes
Zest of one orange
Juice of two limes
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup honey
3 drops rosewater extract (or two teaspoons rosewater)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 ounces semolina, toasted
3 ounces candied ginger and/or crystallized pumpkin, minced as finely as possible
5 egg whites
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting (optional)
1. Preheat the oven to 250. Grease a 9×13 baking dish with butter and line it with two layers of parchment paper. Grease the paper with butter.
2. In food processor, grind cashews to coarse meal.
3. In a standing mixer (paddle attachment), beat 8 oz butter and granulated sugar until creamy. Add egg yolks and mix well. Add zest, juice, spices, honey, rosewater and vanilla; mix well.
4. Add semolina and mix well; add cashews and candied ginger / pumpkin and mix well.
5. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff; fold gently into cake mixture.
6. Spoon batter into prepared pan; bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, until firm to the touch. (Alternatively, spoon into buttered & floured (Baker’s Joy makes this easy) mini tea cake molds (Nordicware made the excellent one I used for this) and bake for about 40 minutes.)
7. Let cool completely in the pan, dust with confectioner’s sugar (optional), cut into squares and serve.
I didn’t make this in time for Diwali (had to wait for my new 5-cup bundt pan to arrive), but had a lot of fun making (and eating) it tonight. Pooja Makhijani’s celebration rose, cardamom, and pistachio cake for King Arthur Flour’s site, absolutely perfect with a cup of chai at teatime (or in my case tonight, right before bed). Thanks, Pooja!
(If you don’t have a 5-cup bundt pan, and don’t want an excuse to buy one, she notes that this fits nicely in a loaf pan.)
When I’m in production baking mode, I often enlist Kevin to help out, but I have to be a little careful with instructions. He’s a great cook, but the last time I had him make cookie dough for me, he used vanilla extract instead of beans.
And quality vanilla extract is great, I use it a lot for baking, but there’s something about using the actual beans that just produces a better cookie, I think. I’m not enough of a food expert to tell you why, though!
I scolded him; he won’t do that again.
(I get both my extract and beans from Penzey’s. Pricey, but SO good.)
Dark chocolate-dipped cardamom, rose & vanilla shortbread (see previous post for recipe). I think I love the gold leaf + dried rose petal decorations the best; they feel very desi to me.
But the gold polka dots are also cute on a sweater, and the white hearts, and the tiny pink dots make me think of cute little kids, so okay, I like them all. Luckily, I don’t have to pick.
Dipping and decorating some of the cardamom, rose & vanilla shortbread from the weekend (for the Patreon treat boxes). Honestly, I think I like these cookies best plain myself, but it’s fun to play with decorating, and rarely does anyone complain about a little more chocolate.
Also, the embossing rollers are pretty hard to use completely evenly, so if there are some cookies that didn’t come out quite perfect, a little chocolate covers a multitude of sins.
*****
Cardamom & Rose Shortbread
(45 minutes + optional 15 minutes chilling time)
Gorgeously aromatic, these warm flavors make for a perfect chai companion.
Ingredients:
3/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 c. brown sugar
seeds from 1 vanilla bean, recommended (or 1 T vanilla)
a few drops rose essence or 1 T rosewater
3/4 t. salt
1 t. ground cardamom
3 1/2 cups flour
chocolate chips for dipping, optional
dried rose petals and edible gold flakes for decorating, optional
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar; add the vanilla, rose, salt, and cardamom. Then add flour and mix on low until dough forms.
3. Turn out dough onto floured board and shape into a firm ball. (If it’s not coming together into a dough, the heat of your hands will help.) NOTE: Can be kept chilled at this point for several days, covered in plastic wrap, and then rolled, cut, and baked fresh.
4. Firmly pat flat and roll smooth (to desired cookie height, usually about 1/2 inch). If using embossed pattern rollers, roll carefully now. If using cookie cutters, cut out shapes, place on parchment-covered baking sheet, and chill for 15 minutes (to help hold shape).
Alternately, press into baking pan or shortbread mold, prick with fork. You can also cut shapes out after baking — shortbread is very forgiving that way — but then the individual cookie edges won’t be browned.
5. Remove from fridge and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the edges begin to brown, then remove to wire rack to cool. Delicious with chai!
6. Optional: Melt chocolate chips in double boiler or glass bowl in microwave at half power. Dip cookies, place on parchment paper, decorate, let dry.
NOTE: Can be stored frozen for two months, or will keep fresh for a few weeks.
I wanted dessert last night, something fruity, but not too rich. I sliced a slightly underripe pear and a few similarly underripe figs, then sautéed them for a few minutes in butter. Added a drizzle of bourbon maple syrup, and it was done. Moderately healthy, for a dessert, since it’s mostly fruit, and delicious.
I really was tempted to make a Battenberg cake for Anand’s 11th birthday after the season premiere of GBBO featured them, but there were a few problems with that plan:
a) I suspected he wouldn’t like the traditional marzipan icing. Honestly, I don’t particularly like marzipan icing — I can handle a little of it on Sri Lankan fruit cake at weddings, but it doesn’t excite me.
b) I didn’t think he’d like the jam used to adhere the layers — we had a very nice birthday cake earlier this summer with jam between the layers and he scraped it all off. Why my children don’t like jam, when they love fruit and sugar, I really don’t know. But anyway. Kavi was worried that I might put jam in her brother’s cake, and I assured her that I would not. (I love jam in cake. Sigh.)
c) Most of the Battenberg cake recipes I looked at also incorporated ground almond in the cake mix, and I wasn’t sure he’d like that flavor either. It would be sad to make him a birthday cake he didn’t like, and while he could scrape off marzipan and jam, he couldn’t scrap the ground almond out of the cake! So that seemed right out.
But in researching, people mentioned checkerboard cakes, and it looked like it was basically the same concept, with regular cake (no ground almond), frosting instead of jam to adhere the layers, and more frosting on the outside. Perfect.
I told Anand I was thinking of making him a two flavor cake, and I knew he wanted chocolate for one of the flavors. I offered him a choice of vanilla, raspberry, strawberry, apple, or mango for the other flavor, and he went for vanilla. Not what I would’ve picked, but hey, it’s his cake.
The next step was making decisions about pans and cutting. Most recipes for checkerboard cake call for 4 9″ cake pans. I have only 1 of those, and the prospect of using it 4 times seemed a bit much.
I might’ve done it, but they also called for 6″ and 3″ cookie cutters (or sometimes 5 1/2″ and 2 1/2″), and I don’t have any cutters bigger than 5″. I didn’t want to buy specialty items just for this cake, so I reluctantly abandoned that plan. (It does look quite a bit simpler than I what I did, and more likely to hold together well, so I’d recommend looking for those if you’re going to try it.)
Instead, I used a rectangular cake pan (of which I only had one). I used this recipe for the cake mix, baking half of it as a yellow cake, and then adding cocoa and baking half as a chocolate cake. (My halves weren’t quite even, so I ended up cutting off some excess chocolate cake. Hey, they do that in GBBO all the time. I think it’s legit.)
I didn’t use her frosting recipe, mostly because I didn’t have any heavy cream on hand, and just made a classic buttercream instead, which is really what I like best anyway. (Passionfruit buttercream is to DIE for.)
Then it really was pretty simple — just cutting it up and alternating layers to make the checkerboard lines. I did a lot more little squares than most such cakes, which gives a pretty fun result — the kids at the birthday party were mildly impressed.
But that many squares also makes the cake a little less structurally sound, especially since the classic cake batter yielded a pretty soft cake. I suspect Battenberg, with the ground almond, has a slightly more cohesive result that’s a little easier to work with (and jam is easier to spread than frosting).
I didn’t try to frost vertically between layers, just horizontally, and that held it together BARELY enough. More frosting on top and sides — I’m not very good at that, and definitely didn’t have the energy to try piping, but sprinkles cover a multitude of sins.
Overall, pretty easy, honestly, and would do again if someone wanted one, though I might make them buy me a large cookie cutter and at least one more 9″ cake pan first. I still kind of want to try the Battenberg someday, but I think it’d probably have to be for a more grown-up event.
I was a little worried that it’d be hard to wrap the cookies with the caramel drizzle on top, but thankfully, it seems to work fine with plastic wrap. Whew. Assembling Patreon treat boxes today, should be able to ship them out by end of day, fingers crossed.
