Sweet Cornmeal Tea-Time Cake

This one is my mums fav tea-time cake! Yummy, moist with a sticky top!

Easy to make and is the second of my experiment cakes but still based on my mums 4.3.2.1 formula which is a proven success! Modified below to grams & ml.

Small note: Have all your ingredients at room temp. Nothing cold or straight out of the fridge including the milk. Your ghee should be solid but not hard.

To check out or understand more on cake baking science check tips & tricks!

P.S. If you find all this weighing & measuring intimidating then use 4.3.2.1! See cooks notes below.

Enjoy!

• Servings: 8 to 10 but more if you cut into cubes
• Time: 1 hour plus baking
• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients
Eggs
Flour
Fine White cornmeal
Sugar
Ghee
Milk
Vanilla
Baking powder
Salt
Some Oil

Weight in gm/ml
175 ml
90 gm
200 gm
335 gm
170 gm
185 ml
5 ml or 1 tsp
10 gm (about 1.5 tsp)
a good pinch
To grease the cake tin

What you will need:

• Mixing bowl and electric egg beater or free standing cake mixer with paddle.
• 25cm (10 inch) cake tin with high sides & removable base, oiled and base lined with grease proof paper (You can still use a 24 cm but just fill to half the height).
• Hand whisk
• Fine mesh sieve to sift the cornmeal.
• Rubber spatula
• Pastry brush
• Electronic scale

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 C or 160 C convection/fan forced.
2. Prep your cake tin:
   • Choose a cake tin with high sides & a movable base.
   • Using the pastry brush, brush the tin base & sides with oil and line the base with grease proof paper. Then set aside.

   

   

3. Make the Cake:
   I use the creaming method which goes like this:
   • Weigh & measure out your ingredients first.
   • The white cornmeal must be sifted first through a fine mesh sieve to get rid of any larger grains. While sieving don’t push through with a spoon, just keep tapping against the side of the sieve. Only use the finer powder in the bowl. & you want 200gms of it.
   • In a bowl whisk together the sifted cornmeal, baking powder, the flour & salt. Set aside.
   • In another bowl whisk the eggs with the vanilla.
   • In the mixing bowl add the sugar & ghee.
   • Cream ghee with sugar till the colour lightens and sugar is fully mixed in with the fat. Don’t over beat please!

   

   • Add the eggs in slowly and in stages. So a third in, then beat till combined.
   • Add a quarter of the flour mix then beat in till combined.
   • Every once in a while use a rubber spatula to lightly scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl to make sure nothing is lurking down there not being mixed or beaten in!
   • Add another third of the eggs and beat till combined.
   • Another quarter of the flour mix and beat till combined.
   • Add the last third of the eggs and half your milk and beat till combined.
   • Add another quarter of flour mix and beat till combined.
   • Add the second half of your liquid and beat till combined and,
   • Finish off with the last quarter of your flour mix.

   Again you don’t want to overbeat! Just get the batter to the thick ribbon stage. It sounds like a hassle but it isn’t really. You are just alternating wet and dry ingredients to maintain a stable batter. Too wet or too dry and you won’t get a good incorporation of the ingredients. And don’t overbeat so you don’t curdle the eggs or deflate the mixture. If your eggs do separate from the batter (liquid floating around a bumpy batter) just add a little flour in and beat so it absorbs the extra liquid. No reason to worry or panic!

4. Getting ready to bake:
   You want to get your cake into the oven as soon as you’re done mixing so you don’t wind up losing the power of the baking powder!
   • Gently spoon in the batter and lightly smooth the surface of your cake with a rubber spatula. Do not fill higher than half the cake tin height.

   

5. Baking the Cake:

• Place the cake tin in your preheated oven on the middle rack & set a timer for 30 minutes.
• DO NOT PEAK IN THE OVEN! For the first 30min of baking don’t open the oven please! Those 30min are critical for it to set properly, and opening that door oven is just inviting disaster!
• If it looks golden at 30 minutes you can open the oven door to check doness. If not leave for another 5 minutes.
• Open at 35min; the top should be set & golden. Give the cake  tin  a gentle nudge to check its set in the middle. If yes, insert a thin skewer in the centre, if it comes out clean you are done. If not, give it an extra 5 min and check. Then another 5 minutes if still needed. It shouldn’t need to go beyond 45min.
• Take the tin out of the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 15 or 20 minutes.
• Then take it out of the cake tin and place it on the wire rack to completely cool down before slicing & eating it.

  

  The sweet corn cake

The end result!

Well rising, no sunken centre, moist sweet cornmeal cake with a slightly sticky top! Yummy!

Storage:

Stores well in an airtight container and will keep moist for 3 to 4 days (if it lasts that long!).

Cooks Notes:

If you find all this weighing & measuring intimidating then use 4.3.2.1!

• 4 medium eggs
• 3 cups: 1 of flour & 2 of sifted fine white cornmeal
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup ghee

then:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 sachet baking powder
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Oil for brushing the cake tin.

Use the same cup for measuring all ingredients.

Follow same steps as above.

Only note is this will make a bigger batch, so only fill the tin half way up and place the rest in a smaller tin (15 or 16 cm) and keep in the fridge till you finish baking the first one. The second cake will bake at the same temp but check at 20 minutes not 30min.