This pandemic has left me with no choice but to close operations of my food truck currently and move back to my parents home. I know a lot of you must be facing the same or even greater problems. But I cannot deny the fact that I got to stay with my entire family for more than 4 months almost after 11 years. It also gave me ample amount of time to cook for my family. I have made a whole lot of desserts, mostly cakes, during the quarantine period and of course have put up some extra calories due to stress eating. Girls and their desserts!!
I have tried to keep it very simple with this cake and have opted for the best healthier substitutes for ingredients available at hand. All purpose flour (maida) is substituted with whole-wheat flour, honey for sugar and olive oil for vegetable oil. The honey imparts a deep and complex flavour to this cake in contrast to sugar which imparts nothing but sweetness. This dark, caramel like tasting cake is further enhanced by a fragrant honey syrup made by infusing lemon and ginger. You can substitute lemon and ginger with other aromatics like lavender or mint, I chose to stick with the classic lemon-honey-ginger combination. This cake is dark, sweet, bitter and sticky from the sauce which makes it all things good plus it is low in calories. See, I got you guys a solution for guilt-free stress eating. Now go ahead and binge on.
Ingredients:
For the Cake
Whole Wheat Flour - 1.75 cups (You can use a 3:2 ratio of whole wheat to all purpose flour)
Baking Soda - 2 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Honey - 2/3rd cup
Olive Oil - 2/3 rd cup
Eggs - 3 (room temperature)
Vinegar - 1.5 tbsp
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Instant coffee - 1.5 tsp (mixed in 50 ml hot water)
For Ginger & Lemon infused Honey Syrup
Honey - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Salt - a pinch
Ginger - 2 inch piece (crushed in a mortar pestle)
Lemon rind - 2 strips
Lemon juice - 1.5 tbsp
Method:
1. Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees C, line and grease an 8 inch baking tray with parchment paper.
2. Sift and mix all the dry ingredients together for the cake (first 3 ingredients). In a separate bowl mix together all the wet ingredients starting from eggs, honey, vanilla, espresso, vinegar, olive oil and give it a good whisk.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix till you see no flour streaks. Make sure not to over mix. Pour in the baking tin and bake for 30 mins at 180 degrees C or till a tooth-pick inserted at center comes out clean.
4. For the Ginger & Lemon infused Honey Syrup - mix water and honey together, add salt, lemon rind, lemon juice and ginger and boil on medium flame for 20-25 mins or till the syrup reduces to half. Strain, cool and store. Drizzle over the cake before serving. You can also use it to sweeten teas and cocktails or in marinades.
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