Mawa Cake & Bolinhas De Coco - Daring Bakers In India!

This month's Daring Bakers challenge takes us to Goa for some semolina and coconut cookies, Bolinhas de coco and to the Irani cafés in India for some mawa cake!

Aparna of  My Diverse Kitchen was our August 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she challenged us to make some amazing regional Indian desserts. The Mawa Cake, the Bolinhas de Coco cookies and the Masala cookies – beautifully spiced and delicious!

Rich, milky, laced with cardamom, topped with cashew nuts or even almonds, mawa cakes are a trademark of the Irani cafés. The texture is slightly dense, reminiscent of a pound cake says Aparna. She challenged us to make mawa cake with home made mawa. Basundi or rabdi, which I used to make often earlier, is just a couple of steps shy of mawa or khoya, but surprisingly I have not made it at home so far. In case you live somewhere where you do not have easy access to it, take heart, its easy to make, but needs patience.

I have made Mawa cakes earlier, though lighter textured, less rich ones. But I did wanted to bake this one too, just for the fun of making mawa at home and not to miss this challenge hosted by Aparna. It was fun indeed!

Mawa Cake :

I have halved the recipe and baked the cake in an 3 cup capacity bundt pan, remaining batter in 2 small muffin cups.

Ingredients
For the Mawa:
1 litre (4 cups) full fat milk

For the cake:
1/2 cup (1 stick) (120 ml) (4 oz) (115 gm) unsalted Butter (soft at room temperature)
3/4 cup (180 ml) packed crumbled mawa
1-1/4 cups (300 ml) (10 oz) (280 gm) castor sugar
3 large eggs
5 to 6 cardamom pods, powdered, (about 1-1/2 tsp powdered cardamom)
2 cups (500ml) (9 oz) (260 gm) cake flour
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (5 gm) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (120 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract (optional)
Cashewnuts (or blanched almonds) to decorate (about 18 to 20)

Directions:
1. First make the “Mawa”. Pour the milk into a heavy bottomed saucepan, preferably a non-stick one. Bring the milk to a boil, stirring it on and off, making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Turn down the heat to medium and keep cooking the milk until reduces to about a quarter of its original volume. This should take about an hour to an hour and a half.

2. The important thing during this process is to watch the milk and stir it frequently to make sure it doesn’t stick to the sides or bottom of the pan and get burnt. The danger of this happening increases as the milk reduces and gets thicker.

3. Once the milk it has reduced to about one fourth, 1/4 quantity, lower the heat to low and let cook for a little while longer. Keep stirring regularly, until the milk solids (mawa) take on a lumpy appearance. There should be no visible liquid left in the pan, but the mawa should be moist and not stick to the sides of the pan.

4. Remove the pan from heat and transfer the mawa to a bowl and let it cool completely. Then cover and refrigerate it for a day or two (not more) till you’re ready to make the cake. It will harden in the fridge so let it come to room temperature before using it. You should get about 3/4 to 1 cup of mawa from 1 litre (4 cups) of full-fat milk.

To bake the cake : Pre-heat your oven to moderate 180°C/350°F.

1. Beat the butter, the crumbled mawa and the sugar in a largish bowl, using a hand held electric beater, on high speed until soft and fluffy.

2. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat on medium speed till well incorporated. Add the vanilla and milk and beat till mixed well.

3. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, cardamom, and salt onto the batter and beat at medium speed and well blended. If you cannot find cake flour, place 2 tablespoon of cornstarch in the bottom of your 1-cup measure and then fill it with all-purpose (plain) flour to make up to 1 cup.

4. Grease and line only the bottom of an 8 inch (20 cm) spring form pan. Pour the batter into this and lightly smooth the top. Place the cashew nuts (or blanched almonds) on top of the batter randomly. Do not press the nuts down into the batter. A Mawa Cake always has a rustic finished look rather than a decorated look.

5. Bake in a preheated moderate oven for about 1 hour until the cake is a golden brown and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. Do not over bake the cake or it will dry out. If the cake seems to be browning too quickly, cover it will aluminum foil hallway through the baking time.

6. Remove from oven and allow it to cool for 10 min in the tin. Release the cake, peel off the parchment from the base and let it cool completely.

BOLINHAS DE COCO (Cardamom Flavored Coconut Biscuits/ Cookies):

The notable thing about these cookies are they are made entirely out of semolina and fresh coconut (no flour). These cookies are a little crisp, crunchy on the outside and kind of cakey within when freshly baked. Cardamom and coconut make a fab pairing and I loved the flavor of the cookies. Am sure they would have been better texture-wise if I had not goofed up with the dough.

Ingredients:

2 cups (500 ml) (5-1/3 oz) (150 gm) fresh grated coconut, packed
1-1/2 cups (360 ml) (9 oz) (250 gm) semolina
1-1/4 cups (300 ml) (8-3/4 oz) (250 gm) granulated sugar
3/4 cup water (180ml) (6 oz) (175 gm) water
A pinch of salt
2 tablespoons (30 ml) (1 oz) (30 gm) ghee (clarified butter) or melted unsalted butter
2 large eggs
8 to 10 pods cardamom, powdered (about 1-1/2 teaspoon)

Directions:
1. Run the grated coconut in your processor or the small jar of your blender a couple of times so that the flakes are smaller and uniform in texture. Do not grind into a paste. Keep aside.

2. Put the semolina in a pan and toast/ roast it, over low to medium heat, until it starts giving off an aroma, and looks like it’s about to start changing colour. This should take a couple of minutes. Do not brown. Transfer the semolina into a bowl and keep aside.

3. In the same pan, pour the water and add the sugar to it. Place it on medium heat and keep stirring until the sugar dissolves completely. Once the sugar has dissolved, keep stirring the solution and let it cook for about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat. The sugar solution should just begin to start forming a syrup but is still watery. Do not cook until it forms a thick syrup.

4. Add the toasted/ roasted semolina and mix well. Then add the coconut, salt and ghee (or melted butter) and mix well. Put the pan back on the stove, and over medium heat stir the coconut mixture until it is really hot and easily forms a thick clump. This should take about 2 to 3 minutes.

5. Take the pan off the heat and let the semolina coconut mixture cool to room temperature. Transfer this into a bowl or container, cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, ideally overnight. For really fluffy biscuits/ cookies, the overnight rest is recommended.

6. The next day, take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. ( I did the mistake of warming the mixture slightly to get it to room temperature faster as I had to go out. I should have just let it come to room temperature by itself, had to refrigerate the dough again to firm it up, but it did not come back to the same consistency).  Separate the yolks from the egg whites. Lightly beat the yolks with a fork to break them and add to the dough. Also add the powdered cardamom and mix well with a wooden spoon or fork.

7. Whisk the egg whites by hand until frothy and add to the dough. Mix well till incorporated.
8. You will now have a slightly moist and sticky dough. Refrigerate this dough for about half an hour so it firms up a bit.

9. Pre-heat your oven to moderate 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Line your baking trays with parchment or grease them well with some ghee or melted butter.

10. Take the dough out and pinch off walnut sized bits of dough. The dough should be firm enough to handle without difficulty. If the dough is sticking to your palms, lightly dust your palms with flour before shaping the dough. Roll the bits of dough into balls and then flatten them very slightly.

11. Decorate the top by marking criss-crosses (3 equidistant lines one way and another 3 crossing them at right angles), with a table knife. Press down a bit but not too deep or right through the biscuit/ cookie. Use up all the dough this way.

2. Place the shaped dough on the baking trays leaving a little space between them. Bake in a preheated moderate oven for about 20 to 25 minutes until they’re a golden brown and done. Mine took a little longer probably because the dough was a bit loose. Let them cool on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then transfer to racks to cool completely.

13. Store the biscuits/ cookies in airtight containers. This recipe makes about 4 dozen Bolinhas de Coco.

Thank you for the lovely challenge Aparna, it was fun doing this!

Mawa, Saffron And Cardamom Cakes

Rich, milky, cardamom laced cakes with mawa / khoya - these are mawa cakes for you. Mention these and most likely people will recall Irani cafés in Mumbai famous for mawa cakes, bun maska (bread and butter) and Irani chai among other things. No, I haven't been to Mumbai in ages, much less to one of these Persian cafés. The city supposedly had a good number of these little cafés, but now the numbers have substantially dwindled down, thanks to the ever growing numbers of new age restaurants and coffee shops.

Milk, cream and mawa. You either love them or hate them. I love them!! How about you? My affinity for these milky things and the urge to bake something with a traditional twist during Diwali, led me to bake these little cakes. Perfect for the very festive mood in the air! Honestly, when beauties like these peek out of a blog as stunning as Helen's Tartelette, you don't really need Diwali around the corner to bake a batch of mawa cakes!

 These cakes are among those meant to be slightly dense I suppose, given the khoya that goes into it. But I wanted the cakes a little lighter, so I have increased the amount of baking powder, threw in a pinch of saffron for good measure! Saffron, cardamom and mawa - can't go wrong together really!  For once, when I baked, I felt happy that I live in India with the luxury of being able to simply buy some khoya at a one of the sweet shops around the corner. If you don't have access to ready mawa, you would have to make it as Helen does.

The cakes are rich, so small they would have to be for me. Bake them as bigger cupcakes, or in charming canele moulds (really pretty) or maybe in mini cake tins or mini bundt pans. The baking time would then vary of course. Chopped toasted nuts folded into the batter will add a nice crunch and complement the flavors of saffron and cardamom very well. Some chopped nuts sprinkled on top before baking are just the perfect adornment for these tea-cakes.

As mentioned above, I have increased the amount of baking powder, added a bit of baking soda (for color) and added a pinch of saffron to the milk. I would ideally have loved to make these egg-free and an egg-less version is on the cards to try. If you have a tried and tested substitute suitable for use in the recipe, please do try...

I got 8 small cupcakes from the recipe below (this half of the original recipe). You can find Helen's recipe here

Ingredients
  
For the cakes:
All purpose flour / maida - 78 grams 
 Baking powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Baking soda - 1/8 teaspoon
Green cardamom - seeds from 2 pods
Unsweetened mava / khoya, at room temperature - 1/4 cup /50grams (zap in the microwave to soften for 10-20 seconds if hard)
Fine grained sugar - 50 grams (just about sweet), use 60 grams for slightly sweeter ones 
 Unsalted butter, at room temperature - 3 tablespoons / 42 grams
 Egg, large - 1
Whole milk / low fat milk, warm - 3 tablespoons
Saffron strands - 1/8 teaspoon
cashew halves to place on top
Or
chopped toasted cashews/pistachios, tossed in 1/2 tsp flour (optional)

Procedure : Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F. Spray your muffin tray or cupcake moulds with baking spray or lightly grease and flour the tins you would use.

Grind the cardamom with a tablespoon sugar (out of the 50 grams). Soak the saffron strands in the warm milk, allow it to release its flavors and come to room temperature. Sift the flour, baking powder and soda 2-3 times. Keep aside.

In a medium sized bowl, place the butter, mawa and sugar and the crushed cardamom-sugar. With your hand held mixer, mix on low for a few seconds (the ingredients will at first look like they won't come together, but they will) and then increase the speed to medium (speed 3) and cream the mixture till pale and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. The mixture will be fluffy, but you can still feel the slight grittiness of the khoya.

On low speed (speed one) add the egg, beat till it disappears into the butter mixture (this will take just a few seconds). Turn speed to medium, beat for a minute. Add the flour mixture and the milk in two additions. The batter will be of dropping consistency. Fold in the toasted nuts if using. Sprinkle nuts on top.

Bake for about 15-16 minutes (for mini muffins) longer if baking bigger ones, even longer if baking as one cake. The tops will be light golden and a tooth pick inserted in the center will come out clean. Do not over bake or they will be dry. Better to check a minute early than late.

Cool in the tins for a couple of minutes, then remove and cool completely on the rack. They were soft immediately on cooling, picture below not exactly pretty, but want you to see the crumb. Were relatively dense later, but still delicious! I loved them soft!

So, this Diwali if you want to take a break from the usual mithai and chocolate, bake something deliciously different, try these cakes!

Happy Diwali!!