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 for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own. We have included an Amazon affiliate link to the product. If you click on this and buy, we may earn a small commission.