Off the top of my head, I can think of one positive and one negative for getting up early after a bad night’s sleep and baking a cake to cheer oneself up.
Positive: Cake batter for breakfast. It’s funny how much batter can be “accidentally” left on the electric beaters, bowl, and two spoons used in the batter-making, isn’t it?
Negative: Finding cake batter in one’s hair hours later.
This wasn’t the cake I was originally lusting after. But when I ducked home to find the recipe for the originally-desired cake, I saw, directly to the left of that recipe, this fella. (What brilliant sentence construction! The essays I’m marking must be rubbing off on me…) My mum used to make this fella occasionally, but nowhere near as often as she made the originally-desired cake. I remember, though, that I used to feel more grown up eating this than the other (the originally-desired cake, that is. Have I lost you yet?), because of the below’s rather unique and non-children’s-party-friendly flavour.
So I forgot about the cake I had initially been craving, and made this one instead.
Oh, and I veganised it.
Oh, and I love it. And it still makes me feel grown-up.
This cake tastes like old-fashioned to me. It tastes like something one of the heroines in my beloved-childhood novels would have eaten whilst sitting in her garden dreaming about the future, or whilst serving afternoon tea to a dear grandmotherly-aged friend. This is the cake I imagine Elnora from A Girl of the Limberlost would have slid into the oven with her soft hair falling in front of her face and her butterflies adorning the wall behind her. This is the cake I imagine Anne Shirley would have shared with Theodora Dix as they listened to the echoes of their voices calling back to them from faraway hills.
It’s also the cake I can imagine I’ll have polished off in two day’s time, but that can be our little secret.
Caraway Cake
Serves 8 -10, adapted from The Women’s Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook. For a non-vegan version, substitute Nuttelex with butter, two eggs for the flaxmeal, and normal milk for the soymilk. My mum used to make this wheat-free with her own mix of cornflour and rye flour, so I assume it would also work with gluten-free flours.
- 2 tbs flaxmeal (ground flax)
- 125g Nuttelex (I used the Olive Oil kind)
- 1 cup caster sugar (I used raw caster sugar)
- 1/2 cup soymilk
- 1 1/4 cups self-raising flour (the original recipe said to sift this, but I didn’t bother. What can I say? I’m a rebel.)
- 1/4 cup custard powder
- 2 tbs caraway seeds.
- Preheat oven to 160°C, and grease and line a 14cm x 21cm loaf tin.
- In a large bowl, mix the flaxmeal with 90ml water and leave to sit for 5 minutes.
- Add Nuttelex, sugar, milk, flour, and custard powder to flaxmeal and beat on low speed with an electric mixer until combined. Increase speed to medium-high and continue beating for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture has lightened in colour.
- Stir in caraway seeds.
- Spread mixture into prepared tin and bake for 50m-1hr. Stand in tin for five minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool.
Question time: Are there any particular dishes you make that remind you of a storybook character? Saying oatmeal makes you think of Goldilocks or beans of Jack doesn’t count…
Caraway Cake – very grown up indeed
Spaghetti & Meatballs – I always think of “Lady & The Tramp” – went out to dinner on Thursday night & Mr HG was eating Spag & Meatballs & I quietly sniggered to myself remembering that movie. (Kept it to myself thought.., wasn’t quite sure how my wakky sense of humour would have gone over seeing he was tucking into the dish with glee)
Oh, you definitely should have shared that thought! The Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene is so romantic… you could have re-enacted it!
Looks good! Would have never thought to put caraway and cake together.
hmmm.. porridge… the 3 bears
Hey, that’s cheating! I said no oatmeal/Goldilocks stories
Ohhh this looks amazing!
Hmmmm for some reason baskets of muffins or cookies remind me of little red riding hood.
Oh, that’s a great one! And now I want muffins.
Hmm, I’d say raspberry cordial — another “Anne of Green Gables” reference — but I’ve never had it. Same thing for mincemeat pies and Christmas pudding: I immediately think of Dickens, except I’ve never tasted either. I’m really failing at this game … Ah! Dumplings never fail to make me think of a Hong Kong film called “Dumplings”/”Gaau ji”. And I will allow you to decide whether to Google it, because it is disgusting.
As for baking … I have been meaning to try gluten free baking for so long, but haven’t wanted to gather up the flours. I’m really intrigued by recipes on mytartelette.com, though, so I’ll have to start baking things to put in my intern lunchbox. Two weeks left! Gulp.
You’ve never had Christmas pudding? I actually don’t understand. What do you eat for dessert at Christmas, then? I’M SO CONFUSED. I don’t even like Christmas pudding, and I’ve eaten it countless times. And I think I’m going to avoid googling if you say it’s disgusting, seeing as we both know we have a fairly high tolerance for the non-ladylike
Two weeks of freedom! Enjoy it, lady!
I wouldn’t know Christmas pudding if it looked me in the face — while I think pudding has a broader definition in the UK, here, it’s pretty much Jell-O. We ‘muricans have apple and pumpkin pie, thank you very much!
Uh, Lauren? I’m not in the UK
Feast your eyes: http://www.google.com.au/images?q=christmas%20pudding&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7SMSN_en___AU353&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1003&bih=454
Still, I’d much rather pumpkin pie, which I’ve yearned for for years and have yet to try. Apple pie is boring, though
You aren’t, but Dickens is/was!
Yesterday my Mum and I were talking about her plum trees and what we usually do with all the plums that all appear on one weekend in September. I asked if she’d ever made a plum pie, she hadn’t. We then debated if we’d ever come across a plum pie and I recalled the nursery rhyme about Little Jack Horner, he was eating a Christmas pie but there was obviously at least one plum in it. I know you said nursery rhymes don’t count but I had to share! Old fashioned lemonade reminds me of just about every Enid Blyton book, as do jam sandwiches and victoria sponges!
Oh, nursery rhymes definitely count! I just meant not the really, really obvious ones. LIttle Jack Horner in his little corner is a great example
Plums make me think of the picture book Each Peach Pear Plum though 
I wrote a lengthy comment about Harry Potter Day and how I hope you can attend next time. Also a reminder about the upcoming Big Block of Cheese Day – 17 October, mark it in your diary!
Alas, the internet ate my comment, and you are left with only these tantalising snippets.
Eeep! That’s right when the next lot of essays come in, but I’ll do my best. WW and cheese, how could anything in this world be better? And any snippets from you are tantalising
Well I’m glad I’m not the only one with cake batter in my hair! Now tell me, do you ever find it on your clothes? And interesting-custard powder and caraway seeds!
There may have been a sleeve that was scraped with a spoon
I think this is the first cake I’ve made that uses custard powder!
I seriously thought I’d commented on this but it must have got eaten up by your blog. What I was going to say was, Anne Shirley = <3<3<3. Also that I made saffron cream, inspired by a scene in Gregory Maguire's Wicked, but in terms of existing things that remind me of characters…hmm. As I mention in my latest blog post, whenever I hear about kippers (not often!) I always think of Enid Blyton's Malory Towers and St Clair series.
This cake looks delicious by the way! I recently got myself a bag of caraway seeds to make harissa with, but hello, cake!
Oh, Laura! Was the book of Wicked any good? I haven’t been able to make up my mind whether to try it, as I read another of his and wasn’t much impressed. I never read much Enid Blyton – think I read more Australian fiction than English. I hope you try the cake – I’d love to know what someone else thinks!
I love caraway-everything
And seed cakes in general. Like poppyseed cake… there’s something so wonderfully old-fashioned and CWA and school fete-ish about it.
All picnic foods remind me of What Katy Did. Porridge reminds me of The Secret Garden..she eats a big, creamy, sweet, milky bowl of it after she finally begins to spend time outdoors and suddenly develops an appetite for the first time. Popovers – not that they’ve ever featured very highly in my life – make me think of Little Women. Any kind of fruit with cream hurtles me into the first entry in the diaries of Sylvia Plath, where her teenage self talks of drinking a glass of cool milk and “a shallow dish of blackberries, bathed in cream” in summer. I have as lot of vague food-related associations from the Wizard of Oz, but can’t actually pinpoint any of them right now..
One of my favourite picture books as a little kid was ‘Bread and Jam for Francis’, in which she eats nothing but bread and jam (pretty close to my current diet, actually :p). Amazingly, it’s the foods she DOESN’T eat – the ones she refuses to try and ultimately feels she missed out on – that come to mind most of all…spaghetti and meatballs and soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers.
A few of the “My Naughty Little Sister” stories have massive food-associations for me.. in one, she sneaks into a back room at a friend’s birthday party where this amazing, elaborate trifle is being stored for later in the festivities, and gorges herself on it. In another, where they go to a circus (?? i think…something like that), she’s forced to eat a good, proper breakfast before they leave. There’s a bowl of cornflakes and a boiled egg with toast soldiers and an apple and a glass of milk. These foods individually don’t remind me of it, but put any of them together and I’m hit violently with the Nostalgia Truck.
Awww man, I have SO many. I could ramble and rant for hours on end. haha but I’ll spare your blog comments, just this once :p
Um, that was you sparing my blog comments?
Love the list – I was just thinking of The Secret Garden the other day and how I’d like to reread it. Never read What Katy Did, though have read every spin-off of Little Women (as well as the original). I wonder if there are peopel out there who’ve read these same books as you but can’t remember any of the foods eaten in them? I bet so 
I never sift flour either, is it really necessary ?!
Ps- I saw peanut butter chips @ Isabella plains iga yesterday
OH DEAR HOLY HEAVEN IN A HANDBUCKET. I’ve never been to Isabella Plains, but I’m SO THERE.
Mr Woodhouse’s gruel (in Emma) – not that I rush to make his gruel. It sounds most unappealing – particularly as he liked and recommended “thin gruel” (not a nice thick porridge).
And, I always did want that wonderful lunchbox in Girl of the Limberlost.
Oh, wasn’t it amazing? Actually, I think there was a seed cake in it… and the description of the apples… far better than the bologna sandwich that she gets accused of trying to poison a dog with
Actually, I have listed in the back of my copy pretty well every food reference in that book and there is seed cake there as I recollect. Bologna sandwich. Poison a dog? What have you been reading?
Back to Emma, there’s also the lovely strawberry gathering scene at Donwell Abbey. Strawberries and cream … mmm … well, they aren’t my favourite fruit but it always sounds luscious and romantic.
And, what about Miss Havisham’s horrible musty wedding cake in Great Expectations
Ooooh, the gauntlet has been thrown! I’m going to skim through the book to find the exact page reference for you, dear senile mother of mine. The bologna/poisoning dog storyline is when Elnora gives some of her delicious lunch to Billy and he gives her an old bologna sandwich in return, which she’s too embarrassed to take to school, so she gives it to a dog, whose owner starts shrieking that someone’s trying to poison it, and the owner’s daughter is the girl whom Elnora becomes friends with and joins the lunch group through. Ta-daa! How’s that for memory of a book I haven’t read in years and years?
Ick, I’d forgotten about that wedding cake. I may not have finished GE, but I remember that part.
Haha, if you only know how many times I’ve baked something and then many hours later found a smear of batter on my forehead or a chocolate chip between my boobs…
Caraway, que interesante! For some reason it looks to me like a loaf with good heels…I love the heels of loaves of bread. (Do you call them ‘heels’ in Australia? If not, what I just said must sound pretty inane.)
Yes, that really just confused me. I actually scrolled up to see how the slices looked like shoes
I think I tend to just say the crust, but I have heard the term “heel” before… I think?! 
New one: last night as I was getting ready for bed, I found two tiny dots of PB right next to my belly button. ?!?!?
I’m pretty sure that’s a sign of impending good luck – like finding a four leaf clover or a penny on the ground
So I should make and eat this for those times I need to feel grown-up? Hmmm, an excuse to eat it every morning before work then!!
Sleeping Beauty…and fresh bread rolls. Don’t ask why (because I don’t know the answer).
*laughs* Absolutely, but I think you should eat it every morning because it’s tasty, not because you need to feel grown-up. I think being a hardcore hiking-orienteering girl is quite grown-up enough!
Um… because you need to let bread dough rest before you bake it?
Yay for giving me permission to eat cake every morning! I like cake
Hmmm, many people I know tend to think what I do is not exactly grown-up and just plain crazy but thanks for your support!!
Since when are being grown-up and not crazy synonymous? Sometimes I think adults can be far more loopy than kiddlywinks
Well yes, but I do find that many people do not believe this is the case (generally those who take life far too seriously). They are clearly even more crazy than me.
I don’t have any food/character connections of the top of my head. I do, however, totally get having favourite foods as a child because I thought they were more grown up. I fancied myself sophisticated and told myself I ‘liked’ things I’d never even tried, so that I would seem more worldly, or adult, or something. Most turned out to be good — like artichokes and avocadoes.
I was exactly the same! That’s how I came to love oysters, through ordering them constantly so as to seem sophisticated, and why I tried frog’s legs and snails. Artichokes have always been a love of mine, but I’m still ambivalent about avos….
You don’t like Christmas Pudding?!?! (The things you learn from blogs!) You had better give Gpasydney your share next Christmas and join me in the fruit salad or whatever other delectable Whispering gums provides.
It’s many years since I read Girls of the Limberlost but I seem to remember she took her lunch in a bucket or something more unusual than a lunch box – or am I misremembering … again.
Grandma, you’ve known that for years! I used to eat the pudding doused in custard for the sixpences, but for the past many years have been enjoying your fruit salad instead
I think it was a special lunchbox – and didn’t her mother pack the group lunches in a basket?
Reading the title of this post made me think of The Magic Faraway Tree. I think this cake may be a little too grown up for them, but I guess Moonface was kinda grown up so perhaps I’m underestimating their eating age. I wonder what my eating age is. I think we all know what your eating age is, Miss Batter-in-Hair, even if you try and trick us with such nice fancy grown up cakes!
Probably about 11, right? Alternating with 70, because I also do love me some bran and prunes
Seems that Enid Blyton = nostalgic eats for many people! I never read her works myself, so I’m intrigued by this “Moonface” figure… What does it meeeeeaaaan?
A Girl of the Limberlost – I remember the cover well. And that all the chapters started with “In which…” Don’t think I ever finished it, though. Along with A Little Princess, the Anne of Green Gables books, Little Women, and probably The Secret Garden, too (and the Little House series, now that I think about it). Is there something wrong with me?
*flaps hands around face in paroxym of joy* Camille! Camille! I have NEVER before encountered anyone who knows that novel. Words cannot express how much this comment of yours has entrenched your spot in my heart forever and ever amen. I don’t even care that you didn’t finish all those nostalgic-to-me books. I am happiness.
I’ve never had caraway seed cake but it is on my things to do before I die list. My mum talks about it, history books are named after it and it just sounds odd but enticing to me. Thanks for a little push towards this cake – I will get there
On the other blog, Johanna! The new blog!!
But do make this – I just had the last piece from the freezer and it really is fantastic