This is another of
Dan Lepard's marvellous recipes. The unusual blend of ingredients - tahini, salted peanuts, cinnamon and chilli - together with a tangy lime flavoured icing gives this cake a very complex flavour. It's supposed to be reminiscent of a South American mole.
Although there's a long list of ingredients, the recipe is simple to follow and doesn't present any problems. I made it with bowls, pans and spoons - no need to get the food processor or mixer out! I used the maximum suggested amount of chilli flakes, which gave a gentle warmth which is just right in chilli cakes. From past experience, the cake cooks a little faster than the time given in the instructions, so I usually do the first test after 45 minutes baking. It rises evenly to give a good flat surface for icing.
The ground salted nuts give a coarse texture to the cake - if you don't like this be sure to grind them as finely as possible. To my mind the cake is a little too dry to be called a fudge cake; it might benefit from a more fudgy frosting rather than a glacé icing, but the cool tang of lime does bring out the warmth of the chilli.
I would call this a good snacking cake - robust and sturdy rather than fragile or crumbly. Just right to accompany a mug of black coffee - or hot chocolate - mid morning.
8 comments:
Looks lovely Suelle, looks good and dense. Lucie x
I've seen this recipe on Dan's site but wasn't sure about the chilli. Sounds like I must give it a try. The icing looks very professional Sue.
Sounds intriguing, now you come to mention it, I don't see why tahini wouldn't work in a cake, but would never have thought of it before reading this. As you know, I do like chilli. I made some chilli chocolate and courgette cupcakes this weekend, but as I made them for someone else had to go very lightly on the chilli! I can see the lime working well, maybe a lime fudgy icing????
Wow, I must have missed this cake. What an unusual mix of ingredients (to me, at least)! Thanks for the headsup..
Choclette - I think a white chocolate fudge topping flavoured with lime would work well.
Celia - the original recipe is almost two years old and I tend not to miss the chocolate cakes!
And the lime icing works? I can imagine all the other flavours together, but my mind balks at lime glace on top!
Lime and chocolate are certainly two flavours that you wouldn't naturally put together, but it really does work here. The cake needs some sort of frosting to counteract the slight dryness of the texture. The strangest thing is that the chilli flavour seems stronger in samples of cake and frosting than in cake alone!
Intriguing flavours in the cake. Would love to try a slice. Definitely a fan of the chilli and chocolate combination, would be interesting with lime too!
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