Butterscotch

My back has been giving me serious problems this week and I am in the category of people who dislike medicine. I also seem to be struggling with writing because I just feel fatigued every time I decide to do anything that isn’t Netflix (quite the addict to be honest 🌝).

My friend and I have been meaning to finish our thesis proposals and hand them in but none of us is motivated enough to start and/or nudge the other person to do it. The worst part is we only have class on Fridays at 5pm (😒) so going to school the rest of the week is just a rumour and I need someone to convince me to finish it.

Fortunately, baking doesn’t need to make me feel like I need to reconsider my choice to do my masters so I turn to it whenever I think I should be working on my thesis.

Pradip recently sent me their butterscotch flavour to try out so it can be ready for launch and I was more than happy to do so. The first batch I did was for two lovely ladies who were doing some sampling for their wedding cakes and despite having several other flavours to try out, they both immediately chose butterscotch, then the other flavours. They loved the taste that the favour left in their palettes and were excited to feed it to their guests, on their big day.

So I promised to make a cake for the blog and share the recipe as soon as I possibly could and I hope you’ll try it out and love it as much as I do. The butterscotch sauce that I made was an adaptation of a recipe I found somewhere on University of Google about 2-3 years back and I (tried to trace the site but couldn’t), and it has yet to disappoint me. You should try it and add it to everything.

Ingredients – makes 1 8 inch cake (1 kg)

For the cake:

• 250 grams butter
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon Pradip Butterscotch Essence.
• 4 eggs
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoon Pradip baking powder
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Pradip Corn Flour

For the Butterscotch sauce

• 120 grams Butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Pradip Lemon essence – trust me on this
• 3/4 cup non dairy whipped cream – I use sweetened – do not whip the cream
• 1 tablespoon Pradip Vanilla

Method

Cake

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Grease and dust your baking tin(s).

In one bowl, sift together the baking powder and flours. (refer to this for the importance of sifting them together).

In a second bowl, soften your butter with your mixer or spatula. Add the sugar and mix until well incorporated.

Add your eggs one at a time to the butter mixture, until incorporated.

Add the butterscotch flavour.

Slowly add your flour mix and milk into the butter and eggs mix. This should be done alternating so as to incorporate air into the batter and make your cake lighter as opposed to dense. Starting and ending with flour.

Once everything is well incorporated, pour the batter into your prepared baking tins and bake the 50 minutes. If baking in two tins, should be ready in 30 minutes.

Let the cake cool for at least 3hrs before icing it.

Butterscotch Sauce

In your sufuria (saucepan) add the butter, sugar and lemon essence. Place the sufuria on  the burner while it’s on medium heat and whisk consistently until the sugar melts. It bubbles up after some time.

When the sugar has melted and looks kinda gritty, remove the sufuria from the burner and set aside. Add the whipped cream, while whisking until everything is well incorporated. (Do not add the cream while the sufuria is still on the flame as it will bubble rapidly and can burn you).

When the cream is well mixed, put the sufuria back on the burner but on the lowest heat. (I use the smallest burner that we mostly ignore). Whisk one last time to ensure the sugar is completely dissolved and leave it on the stove for 8-10 minutes to mix be ready.

Remove from heat source, then add vanilla essence. Let the butterscotch sauce cool for at least an hour or more. It thickens as it cools.

I decorated the cake with whipped cream and the sauce. Between each layer is some whipped cream and some butterscotch drizzle to make it more yum. Topped with raspberries.