Hoiked from a Guardian issue in October 2010, cauliflower cake has stuck with us over the years. Namely, as we like freaking people out with the name.
“What is it, some sort of Christmas cake… but with… cauliflower?!” We see the terror in their eyes and laugh heartily. Mwahahaha! Tremble before our terrifying vegetarian/vegan dish!
Okay, you’ll need a 24cm round cake tin for the following. Plus, hands to do all the mixing.
Ingredients
- 1 medium cauliflower, 650g-700g
- 1 large red onion—peel it!
- 100g olive oil.
- ½ tsp finely chopped rosemary.
- 10 medium free-range eggs (although you can cut back to 6).
- 20g chopped basil.
- 180g wholemeal flour (or plain, if you’re a halfwit).
- 2½ tsp baking powder.
- ½ tsp ground turmeric.
- 220g grated parmesan, or other mature cheese.
- Salt and black pepper.
- Melted butter, for greasing.
- 2 tablespoons of black sesame seeds (an optional thing, it’s more for visual appeal).
Okay, from that lot what we do with the recipe is go for organic wholemeal flour. It gives the bastard more of an earthy, homely look. And it just tastes much better.
Basically, we can’t stand white bread and white flour. It’s rubbish.
Plus, you can substitute off anything as you see fit if you’re a vegan, such as the eggs and cheese. Just go for whatever you fancy as a replacement.
Anyway, there’s a very good example of cauliflower cake done right on The Lemon Apron. Behold!
Cooking it is time-consuming, but totally worth the effort. After the initial preparation, you just bake the thing really. But a few tips (and there’s a video guide further below:
- Heat your oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
- Break up your cauliflower into nice chunks of florets. Then boil them gently (i.e. “simmer”) in a nice pot for 15 minutes. Or 14, if you’re feeling daring.
- Get your batter going! Chop up most of your onions (although leave a few big old rings for styling) and sauté them with the rosemary.
- Take off the hob and let it cool. Then chuck in the eggs and basil. Whisk that mother!
- Sift the flour, baking powder, and turmeric into a big old bowl. Chuck in some salt and pepper (plus wheatgerm, if you have any).
- Chuck in the egg/rosemary mix and whisk that!
- Chuck in the bits of cauliflower and stir it all up.
- Get your baking tray, line it with baking parchment, and hurl the cauliflower cake mix into the cake tin.
- Arrange some big old onion rings on top so it looks all special.
- Stuff it into the oven for 45 minutes. Once it’s golden brown, it’s pretty much ready.
- If the cauliflower cake catches fire at any point, then you’ve left it for too long in the oven.
- Should the cake catch fire, panic insanely, call the fire brigade (or the army), and flee from your premises.
Minus #11 and #12, then it’s time to eat. Congratulations! You’ve just done some baking.
There’s a nifty guide to cooking it via Baking with Eda below.
A few errors there, such as not adding the onion rings to the top. But, otherwise, there’s nothing to argument about.
Oh, and the dish is mega tasty. And you can leave leftovers in your fridge to return to over the coming week. And it’s mega tasty. Give it a whirl.
And now, a bit about the top chef bloke he went and created this genius thing.
Yotam Ottolenghi
Ottolenghi is an Israeli-English chef and restaurateur with various delis in London. He also gas a bunch of cookbooks available, should that interest you.
His recipes largely celebrate vegetables, although he’s not a vegan chef.
But if you like thoughtful combinations of veg and pulses, then this gentleman is the chef for you.
Roasted aubergine, smudged with quick-preserve lemon paste, coriander, basil and dill. With some pistachios and pickled-ish chillies. #testkitchen pic.twitter.com/noA5P7J9gb
— Ottolenghi (@ottolenghi) January 21, 2020
He’s also on Twitter, if you want to keep an eye on his latest recipes and whatnot. They’re great. And healthy!
Is this anything like carrot cake? Actually it sounds good but what are all these g’s about? It’s got to be in cups and ounces. Can I pass on the onions?
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No, carrot cake is more like a proper cake. This isn’t sweet, it’s more like a quiche. But mega tasty. Only one way to find out, madam. Bake it!
And the g is grammes, I guess you don’t have those in America. I checked and 4g is 0.141096 ounces.
You can pass on the onions, but they can’t pass on you. The one in my kitchen just went, “All right, darling, oi oi! ‘ows about!?”
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That does sound tasty. I’ll just round those grams out to Pi.🥧 I failed math.
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I failed math. I are bad at math. I are good at English, aftermath.
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I’m good at science cause you don’t need math.
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I are good at maff because I are… what?
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Good at spelling?
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Eh?
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Ja!
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Da!
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Si
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I like the idea! But… There are many eggs, I’m wondering how to do the vegan version… Any help? Thanks! :–)
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There are vegan alternatives, varying brands and whatnot. Probably best to Google any local ones for yourself, they’re different in England. But should do the trick!
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Ah yes, I’ve seen vegan eggs (but never tried any), but I was thinking about… simpler ways to make it vegan!
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I expect you to cook this and do a blog post on it. You’ve got 48 hours!!!
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Mmh… Unlikely! But I want to try it for sure! :–)
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I made it! Sort of… I had to recycle some rice that my kid didn’t want to eat so I replaced some flour. And I didn’t cook the cauliflower before adding it to the mix which was a big mistake. But next time I’ll do better!
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Oh, mega! Chuffed to hear it. Any visual evidence?! I expect a blog post about this! Yeah, you have to cook the cauliflower. I know it seems sort of irrelevant, but you really have to – the baking it afterwards as well element doesn’t cause any issues.
Have another shot, totally worth it. Then you can impress friends and family.
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I understood (too late) that baking the cauliflower is key for the thing to come out soft as I expect it to get mixed well with flour and the (vegan) eggs… the pieces of cauliflower in my cake were too visible and too… crunchy!
(I won’t post anything on it, I only post about cinema, but as soon as I open a cooking blog this will be the first thing I’ll write about! :–)
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Well, go for it again. Totally worth it, the cake is properly delicious! Very tasty indeed. Hmmmm… as for the post, you could do a film review and then sneakily add in a quick boast, “Godfather is a good film. And, oh yes, I cooked this!” Sorted.
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That’s actually a great idea! X–D
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It most certainly is!!
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