Gulab Jambu Cake...

Gulab Jambu Cake... recipe:

250 g plain white flour, 50 g coarse semolina, 125 g caster sugar, 40 g full-fat milk powder, 20 g cornflour, 1 tsp baking powder,1 tsp baking soda,1/4 tsp fine salt, 420 ml whole milk room temperature, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp rosewater, 125 ml almond oil or any flavourless oil of your choice, 8-10 saffron strands, 4 cardamom pods seeds removed and crushed.

For the syrup:

80 g sugar, 50 ml water,1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp rosewater, 8-10 saffron strands, 2 cardamom pods seeds removed and crushed.

To grease the cake tin: 1 tsp almond oil or any flavourless oil of your choice.1 tbsp plain flour.

For the Spoung:

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F. Grease the cake tin you like to make with 1 tsp oil and dust with 1 tbsp plain flour. Set aside. mix together the whole milk and lemon juice. Set aside for 10 minutes until slightly thickened. Whisk in the oil and rosewater. Mix together the remaining (dry) ingredients for the cake in a large bowl. Gradually whisk in the milk mixture and beat briefly until smooth, about a minute. Pour the cake batter into the greased and floured tin and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Do not open the oven door in the first 20 minutes of cooking. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack. It should come away from the tin easily. Allow to cool.

For the sugar syrup:

In a small saucepan, mix together the sugar, water and lemon juice. Bring to the boil. The lemon juice will stop the syrup crystallising. Add the rosewater, cardamom and saffron and give the pan a very gentle swirl. let it simmer for 5 to 6 minutes only. It should only be little sticky. You don’t want to get to any thread consistency stage. The syrup might look thin to you after simmering for 5 minutes but that’s plenty. It thickens up as it cools. You don’t want a thick sugar syrup to begin with else the cake will never absorb it.

notes:

while adding the the syrup on cake , make sure the syrup is warm but not hot. The cake will likely lose their shape if the syrup is too hot and they will not absorb the syrup if the syrup is cold. So warm is what you need.

Set the cake on the wire rack. Carefully drizzle the syrup over the cake. Repeat, transferring the cake to serving plate and drizzle over the syrup. Keep doing this until all the syrup is used up. I repeated this step 4-5 times. Allow the cake to cool completely than I have decorated with saffron and cardamom flavour cream to show stopping finish. Slice and serve.

If you want to serve this cake hot do not decorate with cream but decorate with chopped almonds, pistachios and rose petals.