Recipes Malawi-style: Fancy Cakes
Posted By Sika on June 22, 2009
The best cake recipes, probably in the whole world, are written by Nigella Lawson. But I like to mix and match my favorite recipes.
Cakes
Yellow cake with custard powder:
200 g plain flour
3 tbsp custard powder
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
4 eggs
225 g soft butter
200 g caster/regular sugar
2 tbsp milk
Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F, butter and lightly flour two small cake tins.
Mix all the dry ingredients together. In a separate container, cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the rest of the wet ingredients, except the milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Add the milk 1 tbsp at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.
Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack.
Chocolate cake:
This chocolate cake is super chocolate-y (without being overly so—when making it, it may seem it won’t be chocolate-y enough, but it will—and amazingly moist. It’s a little trickier to put together, but in exchange it’s almost impossible to screw up the baking of it—which is good when you have to finish baking it after a half-hour power out.
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup best-quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt, eliminate if using margarine or salted butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour cream OR chambiko
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup corn oil
1 1/3 cups chilled water, OR just 1 cup if using chambiko.
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 175°C. Butter and lightly flour the bottom of 2 (8-inch) cake pans.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl or container of some sort, whisk together the eggs, sour cream or chambiko and vanilla until blended. Beat together the melted butter and corn oil (in the pot used to melt the butter) until just blended. Then beat in the water. Add the oil and water to the dry ingredients all at once and mix. Add the egg mixture, and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tins.
Bake the cakes for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes, and then turn the cakes out on the rack to cool completely.
Fillings
Buttercream filling
This recipe can be flavoured with lemon or orange or pretty much anything you want. I sometimes add cocoa and use it as an alternative to the fudge filling below. The custard powder helps it fluff up more, somehow, and adds to the complexity of the flavour.
125 g icing sugar
4 tsp custard powder
75 g soft unsalted butter
1½ tsp boiling water
dash vanilla, (optional)
Mix the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter. Smooshing everything with a fork until it is light and fluffy. Add the boiling water to make the filling easier to spread.
Fudge filling or icing
3 ounces dark and 3 ounces milk chocolate, or, if only milk is available try to cut the sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, remove the lumps with a fork
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (you can replace the vanilla with 2 teaspoons peppermint extract to make chocolate mint frosting)
Melt the chocolate in a glass or metal bowl sitting over a pan of simmering water, and let cool slightly.
In another bowl beat the butter until it’s soft and creamy and turns a lighter color and then add the sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat again until everything’s light and fluffy. Then gently add the vanilla and chocolate and mix together until everything is glossy and smooth.
Makes enough to fill and ice a two-layer cake
Icings
See the fudge and buttercream fillings above
Chocolate ganache
60 ml water
2 tbsp golden syrup
125 g caster sugar
175 g dark chocolate, or, if using milk chocolate, cut the sugar to 50g
Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil and then take off the heat.
Break up the chocolate into small pieces and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny.
To put any combination of the cake together, take the cooled layers. Invert the layer with the uglier top onto a plate and brush off crumbs. Plop the filling down and spread to within 1/4 inch of the edge of the cake. Place the other layer on top, right side up, and frost. If using the ganache, just pour the slightly cooled ganache on top and swirl around to make pretty patterns.
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