Tiger Nut Cake
First, an administrative note: I’m skipping some of the recipes. I may or may not go back to them. The second in the book is Tuh’u (no, I don’t know what an apostrophe sounds like, either), which is a lamb dish. It’s rather difficult to find lamb in January, since they are killed in August or September. Since I don’t like lamb, anyway, I consider that a win. There’s another one coming up that’s mostly olives. I despise olives, so I’ll skip it.
Sorry, Max, but this one has so few ingredients and the amounts are something I have issue with, so I’m going to pretty much give this one away.
First, make a flour from the tiger nuts. You can buy tiger nut flour, but the consistency is quite different from that of flour you make…
The Laird ordered both the whole ones and the flour. The bag of whole ones is open because one can just eat them, so we both tried them. They’re very fibrous. I used the pre-floured. I even sifted it because I’m pretty sure that chunks of caked flour will not taste the same as chunks of tiger nut.
There is a problem here: The recipe calls for 500 grams. Each bag is 1 pound, which is only 454 grams. I called “close enough” and planned to reduce the water content a bit.
Honey is sticky enough, but trying to get a volumetric amount out of that jar would be awful. Cooking by weight to the rescue, again!
I didn’t put that pan on the stove. It’s just happens to be the right size to hold enough hot water around the honey to soften it. Molasses ain’t got nothin’ on honey in January. By the way, the reason that the honey is a Prego jar is because it is from The Laird’s brother’s hive.
How do you mix flour, honey, and water without making an insane mess? It turns out that one’s hands work just fine. I had to wash them afterwards, but the dough was surprisingly easy to handle.
Patashooing (Pâte à Choux-ing for the purists) it was simple. It soaked up all the oil. I think ghee would probably have been better than the olive oil.
Form it and cool it. Done. It’s a very simple recipe. I’m not sure that I would call it “cake”. It is extremely dense. It tastes much like baklava without all those pesky layers.
I was planning on mincing some dates and adding them to a simple syrup because what are the odds that Safeway has date syrup? Turns out that not only did they have it, I found the syrup before I found the actual dates. I recommend it. It adds some flavor to balance the OMG HONEY! taste.
While it’s warm, it’s very easy to form. I think individual pettifor-sized servings might be better. I happen to have some ice cube trays that are actual cubes, about an 1.5″ on a side. That seems worth trying. I do need to make this again – or discover something else to do with a pound of tiger nuts.
As for
Form the dough into a large cone on its side, ensuring that there is a flat base so it can stand. … presented standing on end but should be served lying flat.
No. Just no. As a practical issue, the serving plate shown in the cookbook is very nice, but it’s only just bigger around than the base. Just what are you going to put it on to serve it? As an aesthetic issue, especially with the date syrup dripping down the side, it looks far too phallic for most occasions. I put it into a glass bread pan and smashed it down until the top, which is the bottom of the pan, lost its air bubbles. That may explain the “extremely dense” property.
It also happened to be bread day, which is the day when the previous loaf is gone, not any particular day of the week. My bread recipe calls for 400 grams of bread flour. I replaced 100 grams with some of the left-over barley flour. After half-again the normal rising time, it was peeking above the bread pan, so I baked it. It’s a bit short, but it’s not bricked. It has a dense but even crumb. The barley taste is barely there. (I couldn’t resist because I keep spelling “barley” wrong.)
I’m thinking that adding milk and barley, rather than just substituting barley for wheat, will have a better result. I still have lots of flour left, so we’ll see.
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