Daring Bakers: India-Scented Yeasted-Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.


Now, that's the formalities out of the way... :) I joined the daring bakers - now each month I am challenged to bake a new and exciting recipe!

This month it was a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake. Which is a cake to serve with coffee (or in my case masala chai) NOT a coffee flavoured cake. Unless you put coffee in it. Which I didn't.

Aaanyway... This is what mine looked like:

From the outside - it was a wreath-shape!

And from the inside, all swirly and pretty...

One of the hostesses with the mostest(esses...?), Ria, made her coffee-cake with an Indian twist - as I happened to be at home when my parents were planning a Goan feast, I decided that then was as good a time as any to make my coffee cake.

You've seen how it looked, now let me discuss how it tasted. First off - it was yummy enough, but I'm not sure I'll rush to try it again... Here's why:

1) it was kinda dry - I will put this down to the fact that I don't believe my yeast worked... The cake was light, but dry.

2) there wasn't enough meringue. When I halved the dough recipe, I also halved the meringue part. Mistake. I couldn't tell it was there at all!

3) I didn't distinguish between sweet and savoury garam masala... My fault, I know! The effect was... interesting.

Otherwise it was a very simple dessert to make, and it looked stunning!

Perhaps, with my previous errors in mind, I should try it again...?

Watch this space!

A Little Taste of India

The delicious, cold, sweet, rose pink falooda...

While in India I enjoyed many new experiences, both culinary and cultural. When it came to India drinks; I, of course, new all about lassi and beer and I'd heard of the Goan spirit - feni... but the term "falooda" was new to me.

Falooda, according to wikipedia (and we all know how reliable the wiki is...) falooda originated in Persia and was brought to India by the Moguls to the Mahrastra district - where it was adopted with great enthusiasm. Traditionally is also contains barely cooked vermicelli - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that... My falooda consists of milk, ground almonds and pistachios, rose syrup, ice-cream and the unusual looking, frog spawn like basil seeds.

It's a deadly sweet, but entirely refreshing drink. And, any left overs can be frozen into a delicious "faloodle" ice-cream - totally authentic, I'm sure!

"Faloodle" Ice-Cream - I wasn't able to grind the nuts fine enough, and couldn't bare to lose them, so I froze them!

I'm not entirely sure that basil seeds or "sabza" can be found in NZ, but I'll give you the recipe all the same!

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