Books and cakes - 27

    The Painter of Signs lacks direct inspiration for a cakes post. Early in their relationship, Daisy serves Raman with a cup of tea and some salt biscuits, but given her ascetic lifestyle he was hardly going to do much better than that at any time. Raman's aunt seems to subsist on a few grains of rice and the odd vegetable - not enough to keep the Cornflower readership's body and soul together, I feel - and I'm not about to suggest we sample the "sweet edible dolls" sold on Ellaman Street, either.

 

    There may be a dearth of baked goods in Narayan's Malgudi, but Madhur Jaffrey has come to the rescue! I remembered trying her Indian carrot cake ages ago after seeing her make it on television, so I found the recipe and have made it again.

    Notes and modifications: I used sunflower oil instead of ghee and I ground the pistachios and almonds to cater for those who don't care for obvious pieces of nuts. 1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom seeds equals the contents of roughly seven pods, and four decent-sized carrots makes the required amount grated.

 

    I had none of the specified silver foil with which to decorate it, but it's quite good enough unadorned.

Comments

[knittingoutloud]

This looks wonderful and I'm going to try it!

[Anne]

I did wonder what you were going to find in the way of cakes from The Painter of Signs. A good idea to make this carrot cake . I'll have a go at making it.

[Fran]

This sounds just the thing for weekend munching.

[Marg]

That sounds heavenly -- not as heavy as so many carrot cakes (not complaining, just observing).