Harlequin loaf
14 March 2022 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlode
A 1960s recipe, I think (judging by the hairstyle in the advert on the back of the newspaper clipping). I'm hesitant to classify that as 'vintage' cookery although the clothing of the era certainly falls under that heading! Anyway, I came across it in the scrapbook and thought I might try it, since it's relatively economical and looked fun. Definitely children's-party food, or the sort of thing you would find packaged up in plastic on the supermarket shelves ;-p
The basic recipe is for a plain dense cake (1 egg to 3oz sugar and butter and 4oz flour with only ½tsp baking powder), which is then divided into 3 parts which are coloured and flavoured separately before being spooned into the loaf tin in mixed dollops. I didn't have any of the artificial fruit flavourings suggested and didn't have any green food dye to go with the peppermint essence that I do have, so I used rose-water and cochineal for a pink mixture and cocoa and coffee-powder for brown, resulting in a cake that looks like Neapolitan ice-cream :-D
It turned out of the tin beautifully, a little to my surprise, but they clearly weren't joking when they instructed the cook to 'hollow out' the centre before baking. I flattened mine with the spoon, but it rose volcanically in the middle like a Mr Kipling's French Fancy. (Just as well it did, really, or you wouldn't have been able to see the mixed colours at all from the outside of the loaf -- but of course you really need to slice it to get the full effect.)
Oddly enough you can't taste the coffee at all, but the rose, chocolate and vanilla makes for quite an aesthetically pleasing flavour combination. It is, however, remarkably reminiscent of 'shop cake', possibly due to the dense texture -- if you did produce this at a children's birthday party it would be voted 'just as good as the one my mum gets from the supermarket' ;-P
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Date: 2022-03-15 08:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-16 12:10 am (UTC)