Flour + Eggs + Sugar = Cake
Bread + Eggs + Herbs = Cake!
If you are reading this and wondering if my mother dropped me on my head when I was little, let me just say that my Mother was an excellent Mum and did no such thing!
Quirky as I may be, the responsibility of such a splendid attribute rests solely on my shoulders & mine alone.
Anyway, back to the point, many of my cookbooks live in old packing boxes in the storage area. It isn't because I don't love them so I treat them as orphans - far from it! We simply have no room and were I too bring all my cookbooks in the home to live with us, I'd basically have to move into the car with Mr. Hubby, 2 kids and our enormous Golden Retriever Sydney! Mr. Hubby has allergies & Sydney (our Golden) occasionally farts so that simply won't do!
So to assuage myself, I once in a while drag the boxes indoors and spend a few days sighing & reading & sifting through all those wonderful olden golden recipes. For the longest time, I had misplaced the itty bitty book by Nika Hazelton on Regional Italian cooking which I had purchased from a street vendor in Mumbai when I was about yay high. So when I found it at the bottom of the box wedged under my coffee table pasta book & Fannie Farmer's Cookbook, I yanked it out with such flourish, that I fell flat on my behind. Anyway, now that we've found each other again, I haven't been able to put it down since. (Needless to say, it now sits on my kitchen counter top)
Anyway, its late in the evening and as I am perusing its picture-less pages, I come across a recipe for a Bread cake and I read it again because the bloody thing has no flour - it's made with stale breadcrumbs! And I'm thinking, good old Nika's gone batty - anyway I have such respect for her and we've known each other for such a long time that I decided that I simply must take a chance and fix this cake.
The cake is an old world recipe that hails from Lake Como, in Lombardy, Italy and its as rustic as they come. I call it rustic because it reminds me of the old tea cakes from growing up - they were always very dense and incredibly flavorful with none of that fru fru stuff in it. So don't expect this to be a light and fluffy cake , it isn't, its not meant to be!
You know what it reminded me of - a semolina tea cake that I fix which is also very rustic.
To bake this cake, you will need -
a stale baguette that's been moping around for about 2-3 days, milk, an egg, cornmeal, a smidgen of all purpose flour, olive oil, sugar, salt, brown sugar, golden raisins, lemons & fresh rosemary & red seedless grapes, (which is my addition & I think the rosemary & grapes are lovely together)
Prepare the ingredients -
Stale bread - Break the bread into couple of bits. Place in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse till as fine as possible (mine remained quite coarse) Add milk and let it sit for 15 minutes.Now pulse again till it is a fine mush. Remove to a large mixing bowl.
Lemons - Use a fine grate and grate the rinds of 2 lemons. Set aside.
Egg - Crack into a bowl, discard the shell & slightly beat & set aside.
Grapes - Pull off stem, was & drain in a sieve. Set aside.
Rosemary - Pull leaves off the stalk and chop with kitchen shears or a knife.
To the mushy bread & milk mix, add salt, lemon rind, sugar, flour, cornmeal & eggs. With a whisk blend till well combined.
Trace the bottom of an 8" cake pan with on a sheet of parchment paper and cut to fit the bottom of the cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. No need to line the sides. Spray a cake pan with some non-stick spray.
Cook's Note - I find the sides of this cake detach quite easily but there is some stickiness with the bottom and the parchment lining on the bottom is a life saver.
To the blended bread mix, add the golden raisins and red grapes. Stir.
Remove to the cake pan and flatten with a spatula till the top is smooth & flat.
Drizzle the top of the cake with olive oil , brown sugar & chopped rosemary leaves. Dot with the butter in the center.
Bake for 45 minutes till the cake is a beautiful golden brown.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes and then remove the cake from the pan. Place on a cake plate & dust with powdered sugar.
Cook's Note - To dust, I place about 1 tbs powdered sugar in a fine sieve and I lightly tap the sieve so the sugar falls lightly all over the cake.
Serve warm. To serve later & to reheat place in a hot preheated oven at 350 deg F for about 10 minutes.
The flavors are wonderful! Infused with the scent of rosemary and lemon - the grapes adding just the right kind of sweetness. It has a very interesting texture - more like a pudding really which makes sense with the bread and all. Perfect for brunch, tea & coffee!
Guess what I'm going be doing with stale bread here on? Problem solved!
Recipe for
BREAD, GRAPE & ROSEMARY TEA CAKE
Preparation time - 15 minutes
Cooking time - 45 minutes
Serves 6-8
Shopping list:
1 stale baguette - to yield 4 cups breadcrumbs
1-1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs all-purpose flour
2 tbs cornmeal
2 eggs
2 cups fresh red seedless grapes
2 tbs golden raisins
2 tbs butter, unsalted
1-1/2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs fresh rosemary leaves
Preparation -
Stale bread - Break the bread into couple of bits. Place in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse till as fine as possible (mine remained quite coarse) Add milk and let it sit for 15 minutes.Now pulse again till it is a fine mush. Remove to a large mixing bowl.
Lemons - Use a fine grate and grate the rinds of 2 lemons. Set aside.
Egg - Crack into a bowl, discard the shell & slightly beat & set aside.
Grapes - Pull off stem, was & drain in a sieve. Set aside.
Rosemary - Pull leaves off the stalk and chop with kitchen shears or a knife.
Cooking method-
Preheat the oven to 350 deg F
To the mushy bread & milk mix, add salt, lemon rind, sugar, flour, cornmeal & eggs. With a whisk blend till well combined.
Trace the bottom of a 8" cake pan with on a sheet of parchment paper and cut to fit the bottom of the cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. No need to line the sides. Spray a cake pan with some non-stick spray.
To the blended bread mix, add the golden raisins and red grapes. Stir.
Remove to the cake pan and flatten with a spatula till the top is smooth & flat.
Drizzle the top of the cake with olive oil , brown sugar & chopped rosemary leaves. Dot with the butter in the center.
Bake for 45 minutes till the cake is a beautiful golden brown.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes and then remove the cake from the pan. Place on a cake plate & dust with powdered sugar.
Serve warm.
Enjoy!
