I made the Tunisian Cake which we so enjoyed at the bookshop (scroll down for the picture) last week, and it is just as delicious as I'd hoped, but I hit a wee snag: the recipe says to put the mixture in a cold oven which you then set to go up to the required temperature, but as I cook on an Aga and thus have no such thing as a cold oven, I couldn't do it that way. Although I gave it only about half the full cooking time in the baking oven, when I checked on it I found it was still far from ready in the middle but rather too brown on top. I covered it with foil and put it back in to finish baking, and no harm was done - the well-firedness doesn't affect the taste at all, but when I make it again I think I'll get it going in the slowest oven then move it up, or perhaps use the cold shelf to reduce the temperature initially; if you're an Aga cook who has made this or a similar cake, perhaps you could let me know how you baked it.
As to the ingredients, I used rapeseed oil instead of the olive specified and I'm very pleased with the result. I bought locally produced, sunshine yellow Supernature cold pressed rapeseed oil at Stockbridge Market, and I'll be going back for more next week. I'd suggest one further modification to the recipe and that is to use the juice of a whole (rather than a half) lemon and an orange for the syrup as the cake will easily absorb the extra liquid.
Why did you change the oil? Is it better with rapeseed or just different? I thought for just a second they were growing rapeseed in the Dean Gardens when you had "locally produced" and Stockbridge in the same sentence.
Bet it was just delicious!
Posted by: Dark Puss | 07 November 2011 at 03:15 PM
I'm drooling over the little piece I can see here! You baked it with polenta - interesting. I guess it has a completely different taste from a lemon cake which my mother makes. It sounds so good. I'm going to try it one day soon.
Posted by: Deirdre | 07 November 2011 at 05:30 PM
Having no olive oil (only extra virgin, which I thought would be too assertive a flavour) I was off to buy some when I found the rapeseed oil at the market, and having tasted it thought it would work well - which it does.
As for the Dean Gardens, you can't move for combines in Moray Place these days ...
Posted by: Cornflower | 08 November 2011 at 11:22 AM
I noticed that some other recipes for the cake specify breadcrumbs where my one has polenta, and I'm sure that would be fine, but I do like the slight grittiness that the polenta provides.
Posted by: Cornflower | 08 November 2011 at 11:24 AM