Similar to polenta, the maize meal gives this cake an interesting texture.
Maize meal and cashew nut cake
Ingredients
- CAKE
- 250g cashew nuts
- 240g cake flour
- 250g butter, at room temperature
- 300g icing sugar, sifted
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 10ml (2 tsp) baking powder
- a pinch of bicarbonate of soda
- a pinch of salt
- 200ml buttermilk
- 90g honey
- 180g maize meal
- ICING
- 500g white chocolate, broken into pieces
- 500ml cream
- 30ml (2 tbsp) butter
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 190ºC. Lightly grease 2 x 20cm springform cake tins with butter and dust with flour.
Place the nuts on a baking tray and roast in the oven for 5 minutes. Roughly chop the nuts, and combine with 15ml (1 tbsp) of the cake flour in a mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and icing sugar together with an electric beater until light and fluffy. Slowly add the eggs one tablespoon at a time, beating continuously.
Sift the remaining cake flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together. Fold in the buttermilk slowly, little by little.
Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture. Fold in the nuts, honey and maize meal. Pour the mixture into the cake tins and bake for 35 – 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes in the tins, before removing the cakes from the tins and cooling them on a wire rack.
For the icing, melt the chocolate and cream together over a very low heat until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter. Place in the fridge until cold, then beat the icing until it is light and fluffy.
Slice each cake widthways into two. Place one layer on a cake plate, spread a quarter of the icing over and top with the second cake layer. Repeat until all the layers are stacked up. Spread the remaining icing over the top of the cake.
