Thursday, March 5, 2015

Cake Pudding: The story & recipe 12-31-13

Last week in the mist of my holiday baking storm I accidentally made a batch of holiday cakes without baking powder. The result was the hard footballs on the left. The cake failed to rise but still tasted lovely. A friend of mine suggested making a "cake pudding". I was intrigued! 

Google search "cake pudding"! Not much came up, about three recipes. For each recipe, you had to make a specific kind of cake first, in order to create the "cake pudding". To me, that defeats the purpose. Traditional bread pudding is a way to utilize stale bread, so cake pudding should work the same way. So that means I have to experiment. I love to experiment 

Searching through hundreds of bread pudding recipes I came across a Hawaiian Bread pudding using fresh pineapple and coconut. Euerka! That's it. I had some glaced pineapple left over from a failed white fruit cake experiment and lots of dried coconut... cause I'm the CoconutBaby

Anyway... recipe time. In creating my recipe I had to take a couple of things into consideration.

1. My cake was very dense because there was no baking powder

2. I wanted to add more fruit than what the bread pudding recipe called for.

3. I wasn't using fresh fruits.

So, what does all this mean?

1. Had to use more liquid than recipe called for. I opted for a mix of coconut milk, evaporated milk and condensed milk.

2. Adding more fruit doesn't mean throwing in everything without measuring. Never go over the ratio set in the original recipe. If the total amount of fruit adds up to 1cup, then only use 1 cup just divide the fruit into that one cup. Example: If you're using pineapple, golden raisins, coconut and maraschino cherries. 1/4 of each fruit.

3. Using glaced fruit adds sugar to the recipe, this means you have to lessen the amount in the original. 1/2 cup became 1/4 cup.

4. The orignal recipe called for 4eggs. This cake is very dense so I don't think it needs that much egg. I lowered it to two.

Ok, so that's the thought process behind the recipe. Here is the actual recipe  

Any plain 1/2 sheet cake (no icing)
2 eggs
1/2 cup of coconut milk
1/4 cup of evaporated milk
1/4 cup of sweetened condensed milk
Vanilla extract
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 unsweetened coconut
1/4 dried pineapple, cut up
1/4 golden raisins
1/4 maraschino cherries, cut up
1/2 stick butter, melted
Toasted coconut to garnish

Glaze
1cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons water

Cut the cake into cubes. Add all the fruits. In a separate bowl break 2eggs and lightly beat. Add milks, sugar, and vanilla extract. Pour over cake and fruit mixture. Mix, but don't mash. Make sure that all the cake has soaked in the milk/egg mixture. Drizzle the melted butter over, lightly mix and then transfer to a buttered baking pan. 350 degrees for 30- 45. Do a clean fork test. 

Garnish with vanilla glaze and toasted coconut

Thats it. Enjoy 

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