This is a cake I baked a few days back an hour before I had to fly out from Sydney to Singapore enroute to Mumbai. Was meant to be a surprise dessert to take to meet my friends from a long time back. They are christened as Gatarganga for the filthy language they use when talking to each other ..Ahh boys who still pretend that they and I are teenagers.
I was very pleased to see that it survived the journey in my backpack all the way to here so I thought to write down the recipe before I get senile or dementia or both.
Butter softened -75 g
Oil( vegetable )-50 g
Sugar brown or white – 125 g
Flour 95 g
Almond powder- 50 g
Baking powder-10 g
eggs large-2
Cream 50 g
Cocoa nibs – 10 g/1 t( these are for the crunch and a hint of bitterness to contrast with the sweetness of the cake.
Sliced almonds -20g/1 T
I made this like a modified version of a pound cake. First things to do is get your oven preheated before you start to175 C. Line one 8 inch cake tin with baking paper atleast at the base( or use a precut silicone cake base)
whisk the eggs with sugar and add a little vanilla extract. Melt the butter and oil and add to the whisked eggs mix. Add in the cream and mix lightly.
Mix together the almond flour and baking powder and fold it into the egg mix. Gently mix in the cocoa nibs.
Pour it into the cake tin and top with sliced/ flaked almonds. Bake for between 20-25 mins or a bit more till done .
We used to make this dark chocolate souffle in my hotel in Dubai and serve it in our Latin American restaurant Pachanga, and 5 years and several menu changes later this was one item which had stood the test f time. Never fails to please or your money back!!
Method.
Pre-heat oven to 200 C.
Grease ramekins with some melted butter and line with sugar, just enough to coat the bottom and sides of the ramekins.
Separate egg yolks and whites.
Melt chocolate and butter over a double boiler
Whisk egg yolks and sugar till well combined and fluffly.
Sieve cornflour and cocoa powder together
Add cornflour and cocoa mix to chocolate mix.
Whisk egg whites with 30 gm sugar till stiff .
Mix egg yolk mix and chocolate mix.
Fold in egg whites, a little at a time, to ensure we do not lose too much volume.
Fill into the ramekins approximately ¾ th full.
Bake at 200 C for 8-10 minutes, for soufflé with a soft centre. For a fully cooked and drier product can be cooked for upto 12 minutes.
Dust with icing sugar and serve with vanilla ice cream.
Note- these soufflés can be kept in the refrigerator and cooked to order and will stay without losing significant volume for upto 1 day.
There are various versions of a savoury filling wrapped around with a crumbly/ flakey pastry through the world. The indians have their samosas and kachoris.In the middle east there are the Sambousek/ Fateyers/rokaka. korea the Mandu, South america the empanda..Even Russia has something called a vareniki and the Uyghur Muslims the Samsa-which they bake in a clay oven like the tandoor..So all foods are related or sometimes similar. The lines started to get blurred with all the invasions and migrations..
When i lived in the West indies they would make fried potato pastry called “Aloo(potato) Pie”
This gently oil poached bread ( fried) is perfect for clogging up those arteries which aren’t already buggered . Best served with a chick peas curry which will mean another blog post.
These are very similar to the west Indian doubles but eaten fresh and hot and not wrapped to be like a sandwich.
We can make these with multiple kind of flour mixes, but for today’s one I used wholemeal spelt, plain flour and whole wheat flour .
Flour- 250g
Spelt flour- 100 g
Whole meal flour- 100 g
Baking powder- 5 g /1 tsp
Warm water- 240-260 g depends– we want a semi soft dough
Yeast-4 g
Salt- 8 g
Sugar- 8 g
Oil-15 g
Mix flours yeast baking powder sugar and add in the water to make the dough. Add in salt/oil and leave to rest.
When resting keep dough covered to prevent it from skinning
After 15-20 mins you will see the dough start to rise .
Scale into about 50 g balls and rest for -5-10 mins again.
roll out about 1/2 cm thick .Leave for 2-3 mins
Gently poach(not really)/fry in hot oil. These should be puffed up and browned after frying.
Eat one or many depending on how badly you want to clog up those arteries.
Typically served with a chickpeas curry,but you could do other stuff with it..
In commercial baking they talk about bakers formula and that makes life so much easier rather than trying to remember a recipe with exact details.
I will give you an example of a simple bread formula using bakers percentage. In this the flour is Always taken as a100%.and everything else is taken in proportion to the flour .
Flour 100%
Water or liquid -65%
Active dry yeast -2%
Sugar 2%
Salt2%
Oil/fat-5%
So I were to put a weight on this I could say
Flour 1000g
Water 650g
Yeast 20g
Salt 20g
Oil/butter -50g
The method stays the same . Mix flour with water sugar and yeast then add in the water .add salt and oil in the end .
Proof once, then scale, shape and proof again.
Bake usually at 190-200c for 12-15mins
stories of foods from the world over, laced with a hint of sarcasm and some black humour, its not for everyone, but then never was meant to be..