Thursday, December 22, 2011

Spicy Nutty Cake Hearts

Man Proposes God Disposes. I proposed cookies it turned out to be cake!. Well I wanted to go on a cookie fest -bars/rounds or whatever, it turned out that one of the recipe I adapted turned out to be a cake or is it cakey cookies? Nah, definitely a cake . It was nutty and spicy what with the addition of white pepper along with the mandatory cinnamon (my favourite)!.



Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour: 1 cup
Baking Powder: 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon Powdered: 3/4 tsp
Ground Nutmeg: 1/4 tsp
White Pepper Powder: 1/2 tsp
Salt : a pinch or 1/8 tsp

Butter: 4 tbsp soft unsalted
Packed Brown Sugar: 3/4 cup

Egg: 1 or Ener G Egg :1 or Any choice of replacer. Add water/yogurt 1-2 tbsp extra.
Vanilla Extract: 1/2 tsp

Yogurt/Sour Cream: 6 tbsp

Candied Nuts: 3/4 cup
(The recipe used butter toffee walnuts, but I used candied mixed nuts -walnuts and pecans)

Preparation:
Sift together flour,spices,baking powder and salt.

Cream together butter and sugar till creamy. Beat in the vanilla and egg. The mix may look curdled at this point, but carry on.

I used Ener G egg (1.5 pkd tsp of Ener G blended with 2 tbsp of water) and had to add extra 2-3 tbsp of liquid at the end to get a pouring consistency.

Beat in the flour mix and yogurt alternately starting and ending with flour. Fold in the walnuts and spread the batter - thick pouring consistency- onto a lined and greased 8' square pan. A 6 inch pan also works well as there is barely enough batter to cover the pan.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for about 25-30 minutes or until the center is set and the edges sort of pulls away from the sides of the pan. 

Take out and cool completely in the pan on the wire rack.Cut into bars or choice of shapes.


I went for a heart shape just for a change and garnished it with a sugar glaze which I had made for something else and also drizzled with chocolate sauce. You can also add candied nuts and serve the cake hearts with icecream as a hearty dessert. 


A spicy comforting cake or 'soft cakey cookies' (nah!!) you can say. The overall feeling is comfort from the spices with the crunch and sweetness from the nuts in between. I liked it as such without any embellishments,but feel free to shape and garnish as you like. A perfect cake rather than the traditional cake to ring in the end of the year.



3 Comments:

Priya Suresh said...

Heart shaped cake looks damn attractive and elegant.

Indian Khana said...

Looks yum n so cute .....nicely done

Cham said...

White pepper should give a sharp spice taste to the sweet! That is a different dessert!

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