Hi guys! Hope everyone is doing great! I’m back after an unexpected mini hiatus. I’ve missed blogging but I also feel super refreshed after the little break. Another break is not very far off but this time I’ll definitely be scheduling some posts.
Mawa cake is amongst the popular Indian cake recipes, an absolute must-have on the menu of every Irani/Parsi cafe/bakery. It is dense, moist and buttery.
WHAT IS MAWA?
For the uninitiated, mawa is nothing but milk solids, left behind by heating the milk on low heat for hours until all the moisture is evaporated. This resultant dough left behind is mawa or khoya or khoa- milk solids which are used practically for most Indian sweets and savory dishes like the basic white gravy in Punjabi cuisine. I’ve shared a few Indian sweet recipes using mawa powder in my earlier posts, like this kesar (saffron) peda, mango mawa burfi, and chocolate mawa peda. In terms of savory dishes, I’ve used little milk mawa powder to make this delicious methi matar malai paneer.
HOW TO MAKE MAWA CAKE?
This is a pretty simple and basic cake recipe, infused with mawa, flavored with cardamom or nutmeg and topped with nuts, usually cashew nuts & almonds. This is super rich and also so addictive at the same time. It’s not difficult to sight patrons feasting on some mawa cake or a plate of bun maska along with a cup of chai at these dwindling, old world charm Irani cafes. Even the mawa cakes at Merwans in Andheri, a Mumbai suburb and B. Merwan in Grant Road, sells like hotcakes. A trip to Mumbai would be incomplete without having a mawa cake from one of these famous cafes/stores. We had an Irani cafe next to our college, St. Xavier’s in Mumbai, and so a trip to this cafe would inevitably happen every now and then 😀 Oh the bread pudding and baked custard was to die for too! So so good! You know how some things are outrageously downright delicious and they don’t make the best-photographed food? In my opinion, this mawa cake fits that category. It may look ordinary, but let me tell you, it is one of the best cakes you will ever have! It requires no frosting, is best eaten as is 🙂 So good that you won’t mind eating it for breakfast or dessert, perfect with tea or coffee 😀
So how do you go about making one of the best tea time cakes ever? I simply added mawa to my basic, fail-proof vanilla cake, to yield a delicious mawa cake. Worked like a charm and taste just like the Parsi mawa cakes. Everyone at home attests to this! Truth be told, I can happily buy dozens of mawa cupcakes from these bakeries. There are none where I live, but thanks to that adversity I learnt to bake my own mawa cake, which I can make and relish anytime!
This recipe is for mawa cake with eggs. I’ve experimented with countless eggless versions using yogurt and heavy cream. Whilst the cake tasted phenomenal and just like the ones with eggs, the cake sank a little every single time. Not a lot, but yes a little. I don’t like to share recipes that I’m not happy with or aren’t foolproof. So the eggless version would just have to wait for a little longer probably. My next experiment would be to try it with condensed milk in lieu of eggs! Honestly, if you don’t mind the little bit of cake sinking, then please go ahead and bake this cake, there’s no compromise on taste at all. Simply substitute the eggs with 1/2 cup non-sour yogurt. Turn on the oven, gather these ingredients and let’s get baking, folks! This is the best mawa cake recipe, bakery style and I’m sure you will fall in love with it too 🙂
ENJOYED THIS MAWA CAKE? HERE ARE SOME INDIAN CAKE RECIPES FOR YOU TO TRY
Egg-free Orange cupcakes Eggless Mango semolina cupcakes Baath cake (Goan coconut and semolina cake) Tutti frutti loaf cake Eggless Mango loaf cake Eggless Marble cake Rava Cake
STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS TO MAKE INDIAN MAWA CAKE
1.Preheat the oven to 350 F, position a rack in the middle of the oven. Grease an 8-inch cake tin / 9 x 5 loaf pan with little butter and dust with flour to coat the pan, or you may use parchment paper.
2.In a medium mixing bowl, sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda and cardamom powder. Add salt, whisk the dry ingredients until well combined. Set aside. Also, grate the mawa and set aside.
3.In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and creamy, scraping down in between, should take about 2-3 minutes. Or you can use an electric hand mixer/beater.
4.Add grated mawa, continue beating on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
5.Add in the eggs next, one at a time, continue beating on medium-high speed.
6.Now reduce to the lowest possible speed. Alternately add the dry ingredients and milk, starting with flour and ending with flour. ( DO NOT OVER MIX ).
7.Transfer the batter to the prepared baking tin, sprinkle the slivered pistachios on top of the batter.
8.Bake in the middle rack, for about 40 – 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Do not overbake or else you will end up with a dry cake. Cool the cake on a rack in the tin for 15 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on the rack completely.
NOTE Update- A reader, Shahin, tried this recipe by substituting mawa with 100 grams of milk powder, and she says it was just as good as the regular mawa cake. So if you have a hard time finding mawa you can use milk powder.
HOW TO MAKE MAWA CAKE?
PIN IT FOR LATER
I would love to hear from you! Please feel free to share your feedback with photos and suggestions to me at [email protected] You can also follow me on : Facebook @ Aromaticessence Pinterest @ Aromatic Essence Instagram @ aromatic_essence77 Twitter @ freda_dias Regards, Freda
