Mawa cake with DIY mawa

South Indian cardamom milk cake, made with mawa (unsweetened condensed milk).

So that’s this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge.

Blog-checking lines: Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen was our August 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she challenged us to make some amazing regional Indian desserts. The Mawa Cake, the Bolinhas de Coco cookies and the Masala cookies – beautifully spiced and delicious!

The detailed recipe is at the end of this post.

I also baked :
masala cookies

Recipe in 1 line : Simmer and stir 1 liter of whole milk.
That’s true and that take ages. I have cheated, I’ve started with evaporated milk, then I had my mawa in 15 minutes.

The baked cake.

Let it cool.

I found it better fully cooled, even chilled a few hours.

Iced chai latte (Ceylon tea and cardamom infused in cold water and coconut milk, sprinkled with cinnamon).

Recipe from the Daring Baker Challenge :

MAWA CAKE (Cardamom Flavoured Milk Cake):
Servings: Serves 8 to 10
Mawa Cakes are a specialty cake that is the hallmark of Irani cafés in India. The Iranis are Zoroastrians who left Persia/ Iran in the 19th and early 20th centuries to escape persecution of non-Muslims, and settled down and thrived here mostly in the cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune. They’re most famous in India for their friendly informal cafés/ restaurants that serve the most awesome food. The brun pav or maska pav(kinds of bread) with Irani chai (thick, strong, sweet and milky cardamom flavoured tea), their Shrewsbury biscuits and Mawa cakes are just a few of them.
Mawa (also known as Khoya/ Khoa) is made by slowly reducing milk (usually full-fat) until all that remain is a mass of slightly caramelized granular dough-like milk solids. Mawa is used in a wide variety of Indian sweets like Gulab Jamun and Peda, to mention just two. Mawa is pronounced as Maa-vaa; Khoya is pronounced as KhOh-yaa.
In this cake, Mawa lends a rich and a caramelized milky taste to this cake which is slightly dense and reminiscent of a pound cake. Cardamom and cashewnuts are typical of a Mawa Cake, though blanched almonds are also used. Mawa Cakes are also bakes as cupcakes.

The cake is very easy to make and the Mawa is not too difficult. It just requires some time, patience and a lot of stirring!

Ingredients

For the Mawa:
1 litre (4 cups) full fat milk

For the cake:
1/2 cup (1 stick) (120 ml) (4 oz) (115 gm) unsalted Butter (soft at room temperature)
3/4 cup (180 ml) packed crumbled mawa
1-1/4 cups (300 ml) (10 oz) (280 gm) castor sugar
3 large eggs
5 to 6 cardamom pods, powdered, (about 1-1/2 tsp powdered cardamom)
2 cups (500ml) (9 oz) (260 gm) cake flour
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (5 gm) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (120 ml) milk
Cashewnuts (or blanched almonds) to decorate (about 18 to 20)

Directions:
1. First make the “Mawa”. Pour the milk into a heavy bottomed saucepan, preferably a non-stick one. Bring the milk to a boil, stirring it on and off, making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
Turn down the heat to medium and keep cooking the milk until reduces to about a quarter of its original volume. This should take about an hour to an hour and a half.
2. The important thing during this process is to watch the milk and stir it frequently to make sure it doesn’t stick to the sides or bottom of the pan and get burnt. The danger of this happening increases as the milk reduces and gets thicker.
3. Once the milk it has reduced to about one fourth, 1/4 quantity, lower the heat to low and let cook for a little while longer. Keep stirring regularly, until the milk solids (mawa) take on a lumpy appearance. There should be no visible liquid left in the pan, but the mawa should be moist and not stick to the sides of the pan.
4. Remove the pan from heat and transfer the mawa to a bowl and let it cool completely. Then cover and refrigerate it for a day or two (not more) till you’re ready to make the cake. It will harden in the fridge so let it come to room temperature before using it.
You should get about 3/4 to 1 cup of mawa from 1 litre (4 cups) of full-fat milk.

5. Now start preparations for the cake by pre-heating your oven to moderate 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Beat the butter, the crumbled mawa and the sugar in a largish bowl, using a hand held electric beater, on high speed until soft and fluffy.
6. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat on medium speed till well incorporated. Add the vanilla and milk and beat till mixed well.
7. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, cardamom, and salt onto the batter and beat at medium speed and well blended. If you cannot find cake flour, place 2 tablespoon of cornstarch in the bottom of your 1-cup measure and then fill it with all-purpose (plain) flour to make up to 1 cup.
8. Grease and line only the bottom of an 8 inch (20 cm) spring form pan. Pour the batter into this and lightly smooth the top. Place the cashew nuts (or blanched almonds) on top of the batter randomly. Do not press the nuts down into the batter. A Mawa Cake always has a rustic finished look rather than a decorated look.
9. Bake in a preheated moderate oven for about 1 hour until the cake is a golden brown and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. Do not over bake the cake or it will dry out. If the cake seems to be browning too quickly, cover it will aluminium foil hallway through the baking time.
10. Remove from oven and allow it to cool for 10 min in the tin. Release the cake, peel off the parchment from the base and let it cool completely.

Love ducks, a yin yang drink

Something fun to feel warm in the middle of Winter. That’s not health food, but everybody should try it some day because it is a delicious drink.
That’s a souvenir I brought back from a rainy trip to Hong-Kong before or just after it became Xiang-Kiang ?

I wish it was called “yin-yang cha” which is easier for me to memorize, but it is yun-yeung cha in Cantonese.
If you see the hanzi it’s obvious that yunyeung is a name of ducks : 鴛鴦

Source and more about these ducks
That’s a couple. They even seem to be NOT of the same species. The Mrs is a one-leg duck while Mr. is a two-leg duck. That’s real love !

Like this drink. OK, it’s known, or unknown, as Yuanyang in English. I drunk that in the streets of Hong-Kong and I didn’t know what it was.
Otherwise, I would not have drunk it. That sounded so gross. Tea-coffee ???? I don’t even drink milk tea or milk coffee. But the guy was not speaking English. I mean he could, but he didn’t. That was an honest Cantonese language street stand. I thought that was some type of Indian “chai masala” with different spices. So I have insisted, with lot of smiles, to know which spices… and they explained me in English.

So here is the authentic daipaidong (Hong-Kong street market) recipe.

Add in this order :
-a cup of near boiling hot water
-1 tea bag (black tea)
-1 spoon of instant coffee
-2 to 4 ts of condensed milk
-stir, squeeze the tea bag. Repeat 3 times over 5 minutes.
-after 5 minutes, take away the teabag
-serve very hot or iced

If you don’t want it sweet, you can use evaporated milk instead.