“To confine your use of miso to just soup would be to miss out on a multitude of exciting gastronomic opportunities – one of the best of which would have to be the miso butterscotch that goes with Jikoni’s famous banana cake. This dessert has such a cult following that certain dieharders will call ahead to make sure we have a portion saved for them,” says chef and food writer, Ravinder Bhogal.
“The banana cake is based on the idea of a sticky toffee pudding, although it is much less dense. Then there’s that dizzyingly luxurious miso butterscotch with its compelling mix of sweet and salty flavours. To top it all off, we have the ‘nostalgia in a bowl’ of Ovaltine kulfi, a condensed milk ice cream that has an almost chewy texture. And if that wasn’t enough to make you fall in love with this dessert, making it is a piece of cake!”
Read: Fig and Brazil Nut Chocolate Mud Cake
Serves: 12
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon black tea leaves
- 200ml boiling water
- 200g pitted dates
- 110g unsalted butter
- 350g dark muscovado sugar
- 1 tablespoon treacle
- 1 tablespoon date syrup
- 400g self-raising flour
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
- 200g peeled bananas
For the kulfi:
- 50g Ovaltine
- 450g condensed milk
- 300ml thickened cream
For the butterscotch:
- 500ml thickened cream
- 175g demerara sugar
- 175g unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon golden syrup
- 60g white miso
Method
The kulfi will take at least six hours to set, so make it ahead of time. In a large bowl, mix the Ovaltine into the condensed milk until there are no lumps. In a separate bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks, then fold it into the condensed milk mixture. Pour the kulfi into a tub and freeze until set. It really is as simple as that!
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Preheat the oven to 190°C/Fan 170°C/Gas Mark 5. Line a 24cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
Put the tea leaves in a heatproof jug or bowl, pour over the boiling water and allow to infuse for a minute. Strain the tea, discarding the tea leaves, then soak the dates in the hot tea for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth. Stir in the treacle and date syrup, followed by the flour, and mix well. Mix the eggs in one at a time.
Tip the soaked dates and tea into a blender or food processor, along with the vanilla extract, and blitz to a puree. Add the bicarbonate of soda and pulse briefly, then add to the bowl and mix thoroughly.
Wipe out the blender, add the bananas and blend until smooth, then add to the cake batter and stir in well. Pour into the tin and bake for one hour or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Meanwhile, to make the butterscotch, put the cream in a saucepan over low heat. Add the sugar, butter and golden syrup and whisk until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted. Finally whisk in the miso, then remove from the heat.
Turn the cake out onto a wire rack and leave to cool a little. To serve, cut into 12 portions, then serve warm with the hot miso butterscotch and the Ovaltine kulfi.
Read: Banana Nut Muffins
Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes From An Immigrant Kitchen by Ravinder Bhogal, photography by Kristin Perers, is available now.
– With PA
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