Pecan Cinnamon Coffee Cake **Cake Slice Bakers**

We at the Cake Slice are starting our new book, Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermottand this cake is the first of the many from the beautiful book. Previously we had baked from Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes. And yes I just bought myself a copy of the latter on a random visit to the bookstore. With me, when I go to the bookstore with the intention of buying a particular book, it just is unavailable but I somehow always manage to find them on random visits :)

The Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake won the votes and was the choice this month. When you read the recipe, there is no coffee listed as an ingredient, so I wonder why the name.. Probably it is served along with coffee just like tea cakes.

We like pecans, we like cinnamon but we just don't like raisins. They are always picked out if found in anything at home. Since I had no other berries at home, I used chocolate chips instead. Bad choice or good? Good is what I would say!I was apprehensive of the amount of cinnamon and sugar called for in the filling and the batter. Trusting my instincts I reduced the amount and it was still very intense.Myy only hassle was I couldn't get a neat piece of the pan. I had to serve a crumbling cake, which was overlooked owing to the unique taste of the coffee cake. although a tad bit too sweet for our palate, this was quick to do and needed no dressing up!

For the Cake

360g plain flour
1 T baking powder
1 t vanilla extract
225 ml milk
200 g butter, softened
225g sugar
2 eggs

For the Cinnamon Raisin Filling

300g light soft brown sugar (I used 200g)
3 T plain
3 T cinnamon
225g raisins (I used chocolate chips)
175g pecans
150g butter

Combine the light brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl and stir with a fork to mix everything well. Roughly chop the pecans and mix with the raisins and pecans in another bowl. In a third bowl, melt the butter until liquid and set aside until needed along with the cinnamon mixture and nut raisin mixture for use later.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and flour a 13x9 inch/32x23cm pan.

In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and beat with a mixer on high speed until pale yellow and evenly mixed, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl to ensure a good mix. Add the eggs and beat for another 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl now and then, until the mixture is smooth and light.

Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Stir the vanilla into the milk.

Add about a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir only until the flour disappears. Add a third of the milk and mix in. Repeat twice more until all the flour and milk mixtures have been incorporated. Stir just enough to keep the batter smooth.

Spread half the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the cinnamon mixture over the batter followed by half the melted butter. Scatter half the raisins and nuts over the top.

Drop spoonfuls of the remaining batter carefully over the filling and use a spatula to smooth the batter all the way to the edges of the pan. Top with the leftover cinnamon, butter and nut mixture, covering the cake evenly.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until the cake is golden brown, fragrant and beginning to pull away from the edges of the pan. Place the pan on a wire rack and allow to cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes before serving in squares right from the pan. The cake is delicious hot, warm or at room temperature.

Sunflower seeds and Sesame Bread

Bread has become a staple at home now...I bake rather than buy my bread now, which has become very therapeutic for me. Of late there has been a lot of experimentation using bread dough and the results have been mixed. So when the World Bread Day was announced, the sesame bread that I made is what I narrowed down for the event.

A blog that I recently discovered is thepassionate cook andthe blog is what you could call my tea companion.. A pumpkin seed and sesame bread is what I made first but it didn't turn out rise because the yeast failed me. The second time around, I had no pumpkin seeds, but replaced them with sunflower seeds.

I used her exact measurements except for the use of sunflower seeds. The recipe is for the awesome loaf is here. Do not use dry yeast because then you have to compromise on the flavour... And you could also use other seeds..the possibilities are endless...

The bread rose well, baked well, browned well and when toasted and dabbed with butter, it is entirely a different thing in the way you bite into the seeds in the toasted slice... A very nutritious loaf!

This bread is my contibution to:

Food writing and its effect on me.....

Books for me until a couple of years back were just books revolving around horror, romance and surrealism, until I joined a book reading club that meets every fortnight. One such pick of the club was ‘Pomegranate Soup” by Marsha Mehran. It was further picked by the book reading club in the blog world. Although I failed to do a post for the latter, this would make up for it.

This is one book that has kept me engrossed right through every word. The writing is very infectious. The high point is the inclusion of authentic Persian recipes and very articulately at that as in a recipe starts every chapter and is woven into the story that follows..

The story is set in an Irish village and centers around three sisters who have escaped form Iran during the revolution. They set up a restaurant from an old pasty shop, whose exotic aromas announced the opening of their kitchen. Everyone but Thomas, who is unhappy because he had been wanting to buy the place, which he has been unable to do so. The language has a flow …hence one does not need to have a tough time figuring out the story. Fun to read not just the story, but the Persian recipes as well. The insertion of the recipes do not interrupt the flow while reading. The story is explained to every detail that you can relate to the events, sights etc as in “the fragrances of cardamom and rosewater alongside basmati, tarragon…” believe me, these are some of the aromas I acquaint with almost every other day…

“One of the Sisters, Marjan had always planted a small herb garden, consisting of atleast one stem each of basil, parsley…….Even in the glooming flats she and her sisters occupied, they had gown a rainbow of cooking herbs lining their kitchen window sill….”

This is something for what I cherish this book because it rekindles in me lovely memories of my hometown, a hill station where there are still no apartment blocks. The houses are referred to as cottages or bungalows and every cottage and bungalow had a vast garden. Everyone wanted their gardens to look the best. So did my mum and I. Our garden was our treasured place where you could see all kinds of plants and during the flowering season, the garden was at its best in varying shades of all colours. The backyard was always where the vegetable patch was, which was dotted with fruit trees. Just like the sisters in the book, we left no fertile soil bare. There was always something that was planted in any bare fertile soil. Ever since we moved to the plains, a almost three fourths of the plants don’t survive and me living in an apartment has to satiate myself with little pots of herbs dotting my tiny kitchen window. I don’t think I could surpass a day with just seeing concrete and no greenery at all. It is always a pleasure to use one’s own home-grown herbs. And what is better than being greeted by greenery every morning in your kitchen! This book for me is good-quality writing complemeted by recipes...

Any why this post you may ask... it is to celebrate a dear friend's blog anniversary in the "write taste".