Carob Molasses Cake with honeyed ricotta
Being introduced to new ingredients is like meeting people for the first time. There are those you dislike immediately and hope never to meet again (fried spiders or cheap grainy chocolate), some that grow on you (anchovies or pawpaw) and others you like from the first hello (Cafe Sua Chua or soursop). To be honest I tend to like food more than I like people, so while I like discovering new ingredients, I love making new friends. When those new friends are foodaholics (they’re addicted to foodahol!!) and can introduce you to new flavours and products, then all the better.
I’ve been lucky enough to make a few good friends in the past year who have introduced me to Vietnamese food, amazing cakes and margaritas (thanks Julia!) as well as a range of Lebanese delicacies.
I actually made this cake last year, before I left Australia. In a flurry of emptying the cupboards I re-discovered my stash of Lebanese groceries bought months earlier when my new friend Fouad took me on a Lebanese food tour. Well, we weren’t really new friends, but had recently reconnected thanks to our blogs; yet another wonderful aspect of food blogging. From a small unsigned grocery shop in a neighbouring suburb I bought rose and orange blossom water, moghrabbiyeh, tahini and carob molasses. Only the poor lonely carob molasses stood unopened. While I loved carob buds in primary school (10 for 10c if I remember correctly), I had no what I would turn this tin of deep just-sweet stickyness into.
After trawling the internet I found this cake recipe. Simple. Highlighting the complex carob flavour, which is no substitute for chocolate but should stand tall, delicious in its own right. This cake is comparatively healthy, when talking about cakes, and is delicious when warmed up and paired with some sweetened full fat ricotta, a great lunch dessert. Or perhaps a good birthday cake for a new thirty year old who is potentially more health conscious now. Happy Birthday Fouad, I hope you you’re getting a better birthday cake than this today!
Carob Molasses Cake
Recipe from miranda chelala (see comments). This cake has no added sugar, eggs or dairy and so can be dry. Please warm it up before you eat it as it has an unpleasantly sandy texture when cold. I made this cake again with about 1/2 cup of tahini added and the result was certainly more moist and nutty. I would recommend adding the tahini, but I’ve not included it in the recipe as I cannot remember exact quantities. Experiment!
2 cups plain flour
2 cups semolina
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup corn oil (I used grapeseed oil)
1 1/2 cups carob molasses
- Heat oven to 180 C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.
- Place dry ingredients in a bowl mix togther. Add oil and molasses and mix well.
- Put the cake mixture in the tin and smooth the top with wet hands.
- Bake cake for about 20 minutes or until set.
- Cool cake on a rack, be careful it will be quite crumbly.
- Serve warm!!
Honeyed Ricotta
Ricotta
Honey
Mix em together. Hah! No.
You want to use thick creamy ricotta, not the thin grainy packaged supermarket stuff. Why not make your own?. You need about two tablespoons per person. Fold through a fruity honey. Don’t combine completely this is best if there is a bit of a swirl going on.
Serve cake warm with ricotta and strawberries. Or stewed rhubarb would be great too.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
5 Comments
I’ve often seen those tins of carob molasses but never quite known what to do with them. I do like the sounds of this cake though. Combimed with full-fat ricotta, it sounds like a lovely light dessert.
.-= Helen (grabyourfork)´s last blog ..Win a Beerenberg prize hamper worth $50 =-.
I have never heard of carob molasses. I only know of the carob alternative to chocolate which really doesn’t do anything for me. However this cake looks great and I love the accompaniment of ricotta with honey
.-= Mark @ Cafe Campana´s last blog ..The Ten Commandments of the Grill – Cafe de Paris Butter =-.
Gosh this looks good Lili. I’ve didn’t know carob molasses existed as an ingredient and I’m now very intrigued. Also like your tahini idea. Did you just add that to the mix, or reduce any other ingredients to make “space” for it? Such a simple cake to make.
Awww (snif sniff). Thanks for your kind wishes. It’s very nice to be associated with the carob molasses post too! Such a classic Lebanese ingredient. As you read from Miranda Chelala’s comment, tahini and carob molasses are a typical lebanese “village” dessert. It’s like having honey and butter with the sweetness from the molasses and the fat from the tahini. Adding tahini to the cake would be very authentic, and also instead of buttering the cake tin, using tahini would be best. It gives a wonderfully crunchy crust and a deep nutty flavour. YUMM!
.-= Fouad@TheFoodBlog´s last blog ..Best Ricotta Recipe Ever – Home Made, Fast and Delicious =-.
Helen (grabyourfork): Totally. You should ask Fouad what else to do with the carob molasses. This cake is as far as I got, and when I left I gave the rest of the tin back to him.
Mark @ Cafe Campana: They gave us carob buds in primary school instead of chocolate, so I do have a fondness for the flavour!
kathryn: To be honest I don’t really remember what I did, but I have a feeling that I reduced the amount of oil to make way for the tahini. Experiment, it should still set and even if it doesn’t the flavour is great.
Fouad@TheFoodBlog: Fouad, you should write more about carob molasses, people seem to be interested but I just don’t have the knowledge!