durian butter cake

For those of you who read my post on the king of fruits (that is, durians) in my other blog and requested for the recipe for durian butter cake, let me share a secret with you. This is essentially adapted from a standard butter cake recipe.

This is precisely what I enjoy about cooking and baking. Just by the variation of some ingredients or the addition of some ingredients, you have come up with a new creation. As such, if you are a budding chef / baker, do not let yourself be constrained by the recipes that you have on hand. Feel free to experiment.

Several of the creations that you see in my blog are a result of "trial and error". To give you an example, my good friend GP asked me once whether I like anchovies. When I replied "yes", she mentioned that she was able to obtain a recipe for anchovies cookies from an acquaintance for me to try (naturally, her idea of "to try" was that I would bake the cookies for her consumption! *grin* She is a good pal and I thank the Lord for blessing my life with her friendship). While waiting for the recipe from her, I placed some thought to how an anchovies cookie should taste like (as I have never eaten anchovies cookies before). When the recipe arrived from GP, I read it and realised that the recipe would yield chewy cookies. As my family and I prefer crunchy cookies, I decided to experiment and create my own crunchy anchovies cookies. Guess what? At my first attempt, Da sampled one of the cookies before it had cooled down thoroughly and he gave me the "thumbs up". Excited, I took one of the cookies and ate it as well. Da was right. It was delicious and had a lovely balance of sweet and savoury.

At the end of the day, cooking/baking is all about placing thought to what you cook/bake. The same applies to our school and careers, does it not? We take pride in the projects that we have to carry out in school or what we do at work and we give our best. Having given our best, we do not worry about the outcome because everything will turn out for our good. The Lord will never give us more than we can handle.

INGREDIENTS

300g durian pulp (mashed)

250g self-raising flour

250g butter (softened)

230g castor sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp durian essence

6 tbsp milk

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2. Grease and flour two 8" round cake pans. Set aside.

3. Remove the durian pulp from the seeds. Mash the pulp in a bowl using a fork and set aside.

4. Sift the self-raising flour in a bowl. Set aside.

5. Cream the butter and castor sugar in a mixing bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time and mix well. Add the durian pulp and durian essence and mix until well blended.

6. Fold in the flour using a wooden spatula. Add the milk and stir until just blended. The batter should be of a soft dropping consistency.

7. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.

8. Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

TIP

The 8" round cake pan that I have is an aluminium disposable pan. As such, it is of a low height. If your cake pan is high, you can use one 8" round cake pan instead of two 8" round cake pans if you prefer a higher cake. What is important is that the batter is not higher than 1/2 the level of the height of the cake pan.