The word cake is no
more a new word to ladies today so I won’t be wasting much time introducing it
to you, so let’s go straight to the ingredients you are going to need.
Nigerian
Cake Ingredients
The quantities of
ingredients listed below are what I used for a cake that I baked with a 10 inch
diameter and 2.5 inch deep cake pan. When done, the cake had a diameter of 10
inches (of course) and a height of 2.5 inches with a slight dome.
• 4 cups (500g) All Purpose Flour
• 12 Eggs
• 4 sticks (500g) Butter (NOT Margarine)
• 400g (2 cups) Granulated Sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 tablespoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup brandy
Tools
You'll Need to Bake a Nigerian Cake
The following are the
minimal tools you'll need to bake a Nigerian Cake:
• An oven with a top and down heating
capability is best
• Cake mixer. Buy it in USA | in UK
• Kitchen scale: Buy it in USA | in UK
• Sieve or Sifter
• Egg Whisk.
• Bowls
• Spatulas
• Cake Pan: 10 inches in diameter and 2.5
inches deep.
The
flour to use for your Nigerian Cake
You MUST use plain
flour for you to have success with the Nigerian Cake recipe detailed on this
page. I do not know what using a self-rising flour will do to your cake if you
use it. The problem with self-rising flour is that they never state the amount
of the leavening agent (in this case, baking powder) they added to the flour.
This is why I prefer plain flour so that I have more control over the amount of
baking powder that I add to the cake recipe.
The
butter to use for you Nigerian Cake
For those living in
Nigeria, please use baking butter NOT margarine. You should be able to buy
baking butter from any shop that sells bakery ingredients. For my US audience
whose butter comes in sticks. I don't know the weight of 1 stick of butter.
Maybe this is written on the wrapping so you can check it and then know how
many sticks correspond to 1.1 lbs.
Please do not melt the
butter. Bring it out from the fridge the day before you make your Nigerian
cake. This way, it will be soft enough for creaming on the day you'll bake the
cake.
Sugar
If you think your
granulated sugar is too coarse, you can grind it with a dry mill (the one used
for grinding egusi, ogbono, etc) before adding it to the butter for creaming.
You only need to grind it a little bit to reduce the size of the grains of
sugar. This reduces the creaming time.
Flavour
The job of the vanilla
extract is just to add a vanilla flavour to the cake. If you want another
flavour such as butterscotch (used in wedding cakes) etc, please use it to
replace the vanilla flavour and add it when I add the vanilla flavour.
Dry
Fruits
If you want to add dry
fruits such as raisins, please soak these in brandy for at least 1 week (up to
1 month for Nigerian wedding cakes) before adding it to your cake. This is so
that the fruits will not make the cake go bad or taste funny after some time
especially for Nigerian Wedding cakes which people like to keep for a longer
time.
Brandy
The brandy is a
preservative for the cake. With all those eggs in the cake, it can go bad
before the event if you don't add brandy or any other cake preservative to it.
Here, I am talking about if you will place the cake on the counter for a few
days while decorating it (especially for wedding cakes). But if you are making
a cake that you will throw into your freezer as soon as it has cooled down,
then no need for the brandy.
But please do not go
overboard with the brandy. You don't want people to feel tipsy after eating
your cake.
Before
you make the Nigerian Cake
1. Make sure that all the utensils and
appliances you will use for the cake are clean and dry.
2. Check, check and check that you have all
the ingredients you will need to bake the cake.
3. Print out the Nigerian cake recipe and
keep it close by. For those who prefer using the video, bring your laptop close
enough. LOL
4. Everything ready? Let's go!
Making
the Nigerian Cake: Step by Step
Step
1.
Cream the butter and the sugar
Put the soft butter and
the granulated sugar into the mixer and start creaming.
I used the highest
setting on my mixer which is a 300 Watts appliance and the creaming took me a
total of 1 hour.
Please follow the
instructions in the user manual of your mixer when creaming. For my mixer, the
instruction says that I should not run the appliance for more than 10 minutes
at a time. So, I cream for 10 minutes, stop to let the mixer rest and cool
down, I run it again for ten minutes etc. And it took me a total of 1 hour
creaming time (stoppage time NOT included) to completely cream the butter and
the sugar. Your own time may be more or less depending on the type of mixer you
have and the size of the grains of your sugar.
A well-creamed
sugar/butter mix should look much whiter than the butter you started with,
softer (it should be able to drop from a spoon, see video) and you can barely
feel the granulated sugar when you taste the creamed butter and sugar. Some
granulated sugar may be stubborn and you can still feel the grains but it's OK
so long as the butter/sugar mixture is as white and soft as possible.
Step
2. Prepare your baking pan
When you are almost
done with the creaming, prepare your cake pan by rubbing the insides with soft
butter. Then put some flour into the greased pan, making sure the flour touches
every part, then pour out the flour.
The greasing and
flouring of the insides of your cake pan will prevent the cake from sticking to
the pan thereby making it easy for you to bring out the cake from the pan when
done, without denting the cake.
Step
3. Beat the Eggs
Break all the eggs into
a big bowl and whisk them to a smooth blend.
Step
4. Add the eggs and mix
Before you do this
step, you should make sure that your butter and sugar are well creamed.
If your mixer is big
enough to accommodate the creamed butter and sugar with the whisked eggs, add
the whisked egg into the mixer. Mix till you have a smooth fluffy blend of the
creamed butter/sugar and the eggs.
If your mixer is not
big enough, transfer the creamed butter and sugar to a bigger bowl. Add the
eggs and use a hand mixer to mix the two till you get a fluffy smooth blend. My
mixer is quite small so this is what I did in the video below. This took me
about 5 minutes with my 300 Watts hand mixer which is extractable from my
mixer.
Step
5. Turn on your oven to preheat
It's now time to turn
on your oven to 150°C or 302°F so that it can start heating up while you finish
mixing the cake. You should also switch it to the up & down heat setting.
Step
6. Add the ornamental ingredients
Add the vanilla extract
or any other flavours of your choice, add the brandy and pre-soaked dry fruits
(if any) and stir with a wooden spatula till everything is well incorporated.
Add some browning if you are baking a Nigerian wedding cake. This is what gives
the cake the dark colour.
Step
7. Add the plain flour with the
baking powder
a. Now, add the baking powder to the plain
flour.
b. Put the mix into a sieve or a flour
sifter. Add small quantities of the flour through the sieve/sifter into the
bowl where you already have other cake ingredients.
c. Stir very well with the wooden spatula.
Add another small quantity of the flour with baking powder. Stir.
d. Repeat this process till all the flour is
incorporated. I warn you, this procedure can make your arm die a bit so be sure
you are ready for the arm exercise before you start. :)
Notes:
It is advisable to stir
the cake mix in one direction, in a folding fashion, when adding the flour
because most cake experts say that when you stir in the opposite direction, air
bubbles will be trapped in your cake mix and your cake will have holes in it
when done.
It is important to pass
the flour through a sieve or sifter so that you are sure that the flour that
enters the cake mix in its finest powder form. You don't want to have small
lumps of flour in your cake do you? This also ensures a very smooth cake mix.
Step
8. Pour the cake mix into the
greased cake pan
a. Once every ingredient is well
incorporated, it's time to pour the mix into the greased cake pan.
b. If you want to make a multicolour layered
cake then you should at this point divide the cake mix into the number of
colours you want. Put these into separate clean dry bowls. Add the colours to
each, stir well and pour into the cake pan one after the other. You should make
sure you level out each coloured cake mix as much as possible before pouring
another one.
c. Once you've poured in all the cake mix
into the cake pan, gently lift and drop the cake pan several times to level out
the cake mix as much as possible (see video). Don't worry if the top is not so
smooth, as soon as the heat of the oven gets to it, it will level out.
Step
9.
Baking Time!
a. Transfer the cake to the preheated oven,
placing the rack halfway between the top and the bottom of the oven.
b. Bake for at least 2 hours before
attempting to open the oven door to check the cake. It took my cake 2 hours to
rise to maximum and if you open the oven door before the cake has fully risen,
you have interrupted the baking process, the cake will stop rising, may not be
evenly cooked when done and it will be harder than normal when done. There are
endless things that can go wrong with your cake if you do not wait for it to
rise fully before opening the oven door. That it smells like cake does not mean
that it is done. :)
c. Even though mine took 2 hours, you should
keep an eye on yours till you notice that it is no longer rising before
attempting to open the oven door. All ovens are not the same so you should use
my baking time as a guide only.
Step
10. Check the Cake
a. After 2 hours, when I'm sure that the
cake is no longer rising, I check it by driving a knife into the center of the
cake. If the knife comes out with smears of the cake mix, then the cake is not
done. If it comes out clean and dry, with only a smear of butter (oily look)
then the cake is done. If the cake passes the knife test, I go on to do the
other tests.
b. The second way I check the cake is to
take a look at the sides of the cake pan. The cake should be separated from the
pan or at least not stuck to the pan.
c. The third way I check that the cake is
done is to dip a wooden skewer (stick) into the middle of the cake. Wooden
skewers are a bit rougher than knives so they tend to pick up smears more. So
if the wooden skewer comes out clean, the cake should be done.
d. Even when my cake passes all of the above
checks, I still carry out the fourth test so that I can be doubly sure that it
is done before bringing it out of the oven. Nobody wants to end up with an
undone cake. The fourth and final check I carry out is to gently push the cake
down at the middle with my open palm. If the cake springs back when I lift my
palm and there is no impression of my palm on the cake, then the cake is done.
Step
11. Cool and Decorate/Refrigerate
Once you are sure that
the cake is done, bring it out of the oven and leave it alone for only 5
minutes then take out the sides of the pan. Then leave to cool down completely
before decorating the cake.
You can also cut it up
in desirable sizes and store in the freezer.
That's how the
Nigerian Cake is made. You can serve it up as a snack with a chilled drink or
eat it as a dessert. When decorated, use for birthdays and weddings.
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