I love me some sugee

I'm doing a little song and dance right now. The eggless Sugee Cake turned out beautifully. I'm not going to say anymore. Have a look at the photos.

Eggless Sugee Cake

Adapted from Akka's Kusini

4 oz butter, softened

4 oz sugee

4.5 oz castor sugar

4 oz self-raising flour
1/2  tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp rose essence

1/8 tsp almond essence

6 fluid oz milk, chilled

Grated zest of 1 lemon

• Preheat oven at 140C.
• Grease and line a loaf tin.
• Sieve flour and baking powder. Set aside. 

1. Roast sugee in a wok over low fire until fragrant. Be careful not to let it burn. Remove from stove.
2. Mix in the mixed spice and lemon zest while the sugee is still hot. Pour in the milk, mix through and set aside for an hour. (Keep it overnight if you can for the sugee to properly absorb all the moisture.)
3. Cream butter and sugar until light, fluffy and pale.
4. Beat in the sugee mixture.
5. Gently fold in flour mixture. Do not over mix.
6. Scrape the batter into a loaf tin. Level the surface.
7. Bake for 45 - 55 minutes at 160C or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
8. Cool in tin for 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

An eggless flop

The photo of the cake on this blog looked SO good! I scrolled down for the recipe, read through it and sat back with a thought... "Icing sugar in a pound cake? Will it work?" I'm used to baking with castor sugar in cakes, not icing sugar. Icing sugar was for other things. (The original recipe actually says powdered sugar which is icing sugar here in Malaysia.) 

I did some research on the Net and found that you can make a pound cake with icing sugar. In fact, there are more than a couple of recipes for it. I found other websites that say you cannot use the two sugars interchangeably, while others say you can but within reason. 

For awhile, I toyed with the idea of substituting the icing sugar with castor sugar. Castor sugar weighs approximately a hundred percent more than icing sugar. The basic rule is 100g icing sugar = 200g castor sugar. Oh my... such complication. So I stuck to the icing sugar in the recipe and cut the recipe into half... just in case.

It's a good thing I did, because it flopped! While the sides had a lovely cake texture and flavour, the middle was worse than the Sweet Orange Cake from yesterday. Boo hoo hoo...

Can you see the moist layer at the bottom?

My mistake I think. it was rising so well and I had to open the oven door half an hour through the baking time to check if it was done. Or did I use the wrong baking tin size? 

Rising so well in the oven

Note: I didn't have curd in the fridge, so I made my own buttermilk with the milk, water and the juice of a lemon. That was the only change I made to the original recipe. You can find the recipe at Swapna's. If you do get around to trying it, let me know. I'd love to know how it turns out. 

The last orange...

Update: 17 August 2010 - This cake actually tasted so much better the next day.

There was one last orange sitting all by its lonesome self in the fruit basket. So I used it up in my latest attempt to find a light, fluffy eggless cake. 

You'll just have to bear awhile with my current obsession with oranges. I promise the next post will be a flavour far from orange as it can get. Oh wait... I was planning to make Orange-Cardamom macarons. Oh well... we'll see what I can sneak in by way of a different flavour between all the orange.

Meanwhile, I found this recipe here. I also found a few others with ingredients that sounded like they would have made a lovely, soft cake, but this is the one I tried first. 

I changed it a little here and there, so I could use up the lonely orange, substituted milk for the water called for in the original recipe and added some double-action baking powder. 

How did it turn out? It was certainly moist as I expected, but I found the texture a little sticky and pudding-like. Perhaps from the milk, oil and baking powder addition? I'm not sure. I'd like to try this again with water, melted butter and no baking powder... but that's another day and post.

The Orange-Cardamom Tea Cake from the weekend gets my vote for being eggless and delicious.

It didn't cut as cleanly as the Orange-Cardamom Tea Cake

Sweet Orange Cake

Adapted from Bored But Busy

1 large orange

180g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp double-action baking powder

200g castor sugar

6 tbsp canola/sunflower oil

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp orange essence

Milk

• Preheat oven at 140C.
• Grease and line a 19cm diameter round cake tin. 
• Grate the rind of the orange and set aside.
• Squeeze the orange juice into a measuring cup. Top-up with milk to make 1 cup of juice/milk mixture.

1. Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda thrice into a large bowl.
2. Stir in the sugar and grated orange rind with a wooden spoon until well-mixed through.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.
4. Pour in the juice/milk mixture, oil, vinegar and essence.
5. Beat for 5 seconds with an electric mixer until all the ingredients are just combined and there are no lumps.
6. Pour batter into the prepared tin.
7. Bake at 160C for 40 - 45 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. 
8. Cool for about 20 minutes in the tin.
9. Run a small knife slowly around the cake to loosen the edges before turning out carefully onto a wire rack to cool completely.

A pleasant surprise from the worst spice ever

Cardamoms are not my favourite spice. I have tasted them in kesari, payasam, a myriad of halwas, even Indian chai and have thought they are the worst spice ever. 

Cardamoms - residing with cloves at the centre of my spice universe

I find them musky and strongly-flavoured. Their flavour is so dominant that they seem to overpower all other flavours in whatever dish they are added to. So over the years, I learned to give the usual 'suspect' dishes - like those listed above - a wide berth.

Then I noticed the strangest thing ever. People all over the internet seem to have taken to it like ducks to water. They've even paired it with orange and put it macarons!

I had an eggless plain cake recipe to try out this weekend. I had oranges in the kitchen and cardamom in my spice box, so... I experimented. I subbed out the vanilla and added orange essence, orange juice, orange rind and crushed seeds from plump cardamom pods.

My aunt's 'tumbuk' or mortar and pestle which I used to crush the cardamoms in

The results? Fabulous.

The flavour combination was perfectly mild and balanced. The cardamoms gave the orange-scented cake a lovely warmth and depth. I ate three slices of it before even realising what I'd done!

(Perhaps Indians have become heavy-handed with the spice, like Americans have with cinnamon.)

Hot from the oven... I wasn't too sure about the cake at this point

As for the cake... don't be fooled by its eggless nature. The tight, dense crumb is deceptively  moist. Best of all, you won't even miss the eggs.

Do try spreading some orange marmalade on the slices... delicious! 

Orange & Cardamom Tea Cake with Glaze

Deceptively moist and flavourful crumb

Orange-Cardamom Tea Cake

90g butter
80g castor sugar
100g evaporated milk
1/4 tsp orange essence
2 tsp orange juice
Seeds from 8 plump cardamoms, crushed
Rind from 1 orange, grated
170g plain flour
1/2 tsp double-action baking powder
1/4 baking soda

Glaze
Juice from half an orange
Seeds from 3 plump cardamoms, crushed
6 tbsp icing sugar

• Preheat oven at 140C.
• Grease and line a loaf tin. 

1. Place butter, sugar, milk and cardamom in a pan. Bring to the boil, over medium heat for about 30 seconds. Remove from stove-top and allow to cool.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl. 
3. Add orange rind to the flour and mix through. Make a well in the centre of the flour.
4. Pour in the cooled mixture through a sieve into the well, add essence and juice. 
5. Beat with electric beaters quickly, until the batter just comes together. Do not over mix. Batter will look thick.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake at 160C for about 30 - 35 minutes until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. 
7. Cool in tin for 10 minutes, before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack. 
8. For the glaze - Mix the orange juice, sugar and crushed cardamom together to form a slightly thick, drippy mixture. Set aside. 
9. Put the cooled cake on a serving plate. Using a thin skewer, prick the cake all over the top. Pour on as much glaze as you like and let it sit for a few minutes for the glaze to soak through. 
10. Cut and serve. This cake is best eaten on the same day it is made.