Also this cake happens to be the first one that I made with whole wheat flour and If I had any doubts about its taste and outcome I need not have worried much as it turned out to be so yummy and aromatic. It is really a keeper and my family loved it so much. Here is the recipe for the cake which I had tweaked a little to suit my taste.
Cottage Cheese Cake
You’ll Need:
To make Cottage Cheese / Paneer:
Milk – ½ litre
Vinegar – 1 tbsp
For the cake:
Whole wheat flour – 1 ½ cups
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Sugar – 1 cup
Cardamoms / Elaichi - 3
Condensed milk – 4 tbsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Vinegar – 1 tbsp
Nuts – ¼ cup (I used walnuts)
Tutti frutti – 2 tbsp (for topping)
Milk – ¼ cup (if required)
Method:
To make Cottage Cheese / Paneer:
Bring the milk to a boil and add the vinegar and stir till milk splits. Pass it over a muslin cloth to filter the paneer from whey water. Save the whey water.
To make the Cake:
Preheat oven at 180 C. I used two small tins for this recipe which I greased it with oil.
Sieve the flour with the baking soda and baking powder. Powder the sugar. Pound the seeds of the cardamom roughly. Toast the walnuts lightly.
In a large bowl, mash the paneer well with the oil and condensed milk. Add 1 tbsp vinegar, powdered sugar, cardamom and half the whey water.
Add the flour mix little by little into the wet ingredients. Use the reserved whey water and extra milk if required to get a thick batter consistency. Fold in the toasted nuts and mix lightly.
Pour the batter in the greased loaf tin and sprinkle the tutti frutti on top.
Bake for 30 minutes (in case of two small tins) or 45-50 minutes for loaf at 180 C reducing the temperature after 20 minutes to 160 or so in case of square tins to prevent excessive browning of the tops.
Remove, cool in the tin itself for 15 minutes and remove. Slice and serve warm.
Note: It took me 40 minutes to bake which may vary as per your oven. I left it in the oven itself after switching off for another 10 minutes before taking the tins out. Also The whey water itself was enough for me to mix the dough and I did not need milk. In fact I had some whey water left which I used to knead chappati dough later.
Verdict: I did not grind the cardamom seeds along with sugar as mentioned by Nandita but thought of using cardamom essence but so glad that I did not. The explosion of taste when you take a bite is too good to miss with the dominant cardamom flavor.
I would like to thank Nandita for sharing this amazing recipe. This is my first entry to my event CBB ~ Celebrating Bloggers and Blogging.
Bon Appetit and have a great Week end.