One of my polytechnic Chinese friends from Mauritius has always told us how beautiful his country is. Since then, I have always wanted to visit Mauritius. It possesses a range of natural and man-made attractions, tropical climate just like Singapore and with clear warm sea waters and attractive beaches.
I was thrilled when I received the Winner of Masterchef 2012 Shelina Permalloo’s Sunshine on a Plate cookbook. This book is an introduction to the homely cooking of Mauritius. Looking through the book, I found that there are a few Chinese influences on Mauritius recipes which made me even more excited! Anyway, my hobby is mainly baking cakes and pastries! So I decided to bake an Almond & Cinnamon Cake. This is my first time baking a flourless and gluten free cake. I have no idea if it will taste like an egg sponge. Very much to my surprise, it was excellent! I would definitely bake it again as it requires minimal ingredients.
Ingredients:
- 5 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 200g unrefined golden caster sugar
- 200g ground almonds
- 15g ground cinnamon
- 50g flaked almonds
- Icing sugar and cinnamon sticks
Method:
- Whisk the egg whites until stiff.
- Whisk the egg yolks, vanilla extract and sugar until completely pale and aerated.
- Fold the ground almonds and ground cinnamon into the egg yolk mixture. Then fold in the egg whites.
- Pour the mixture into the cake tin and sprinkle with the flaked almonds.
- Bake for around 40 – 50 minutes at 180°c oven.
- Once baked, remove it and allow it to cool. Dust it with icing sugar and decorate with broken cinnamon stick. I omitted the cinnamon stick with mine.
This cake serves 8 to 10 people. It is very flavoursome and spongy too. We love it! This goes down well with Lychee wine! So excited when I saw this! Yum yum!
Disclosure: We have received a Mauritius food pack to do this recipe.
