It is less than 2 months to Christmas! Christmas was a big deal in our home - with a whole lot of cooking, new clothes for the family, visiting relatives and so on. My amma Rajam used to take cookery lessons in the YMCA in Kollam in the 70s. This is a tried and tested recipe from those times. I am guessing it is an old American recipe as the measurements in the original recipe are in ounces and quarts.
This recipe was made famous among my family members and friends - it was known simply as Rajam's cake. They said that even though amma provided them with the recipe it never came out as good as hers.
For a long time I never wanted to share this recipe though I made this cake quite often. This cake is just a part of my soul - as are the memories of the thousands of times amma has made it and the hundreds of people I have shared a slice with.
Halloween's Day 2020 is an appropriate time for me to release this recipe - since amma was our family's original "boogie man". Amma wore dentures and used to spend hours trying to teach little unsuspecting kids how to "remove" their teeth. The poor kids (including my own) - have tried their best and unsuccessfully to get their teeth off like patti!!!! My son remembers his patti chasing him down the hall way with her dentures sticking out - those were fun times! You will never be forgotten, amma!
The smell that wafts from the kitchen when this cake is baking is truly amazing - and hence the name.
I hope you enjoy this cake as much as we do in our family!
Ingredients:
1 orange
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup butter milk
3/4 cups walnuts
1 cup pitted dates
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
Decorations:
1 tablespoon icing sugar
a few strands of home made candied orange peel
Some fresh lime and lemon flowers and leaves
Method:
Grease a 8 inch square pan or a 9 inch round pan that is about 2 inches deep.
Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius, fan forced.
Peel the rind of the orange with the vegetable peeler and chop very finely.
Squeeze juice from orange and add 1/2 cup of sugar to it. Mix well and set aside.
Chop the dates finely - you can either chop it finely with a knife or put it through the meat mincer which is what my mother used to do. You want to have a nice crumbly texture, not a paste.
Chop nuts finely and mix with the dates and chopped orange rind.
To the plain flour add the salt and baking soda and sieve a couple of times to blend well.
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and 1 cup sugar till it becomes light and fluffy.
Add one egg at a time and beat well after each addition.
Add flour mixture and butter milk, alternately and mix in with the butter sugar mix.
When you have used up all the flour, fold in the nuts/orange rind / dates mix.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake till done - until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. It took me 55 minutes to get the cake done perfectly.
As soon as the cake is done, take it out of the oven and while it is still hot, spoon the orange juice on to the cake till it is used up completely.
Let the cake cool overnight in the dish before you turn it over on a platter. Decorate with icing sugar and some candied citrus peel and flowers. My mother used candied cherries to decorate this cake.
To make the candied orange peel, take 3/4 cup sugar and mix with 3/4 cup water. Add thinly sliced orange peel - I used the vegetable peeler to get thin slices. Let it boil till the peel becomes translucent.
Take out the peel carefully and place on a baking sheet.
Add 3 - 4 generous tablespoons of sugar to the peels and let it dry over night. Store after they are completely dry in an airtight container.
Both the left over syrup and peels can be used for cakes, biscuits, puddings and cocktails.
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