The Quest for Curry Cake Continues

Well, as the Kashmiri Carrot Cake went down so well with all who sampled it this weekend, I am determined to continue my suspiciously sober quest for an actually curry-hot-tasting cake.  Today I have been exploring the Interwebs for a definitive list of possible curries to emulate, and have come up with the following Plan of Action, moving from mild to spicy up to a terrifying End Boss:

• Korma Cake.  Based on a coconut sponge recipe, this cake should be relatively easy to make work, incorporating creamed coconut, ground almonds, ginger, chilli, garam masala, black pepper and turmeric with a sweet yoghurt icing.

• Biriyani Cake.  This is a rice dish used as a side, so this cake will have to incorporate boiled rice, as well as almonds, sultanas, cinnamon, cardamom and a bay leaf.  Technically it's probably less hot than the previous two but the rice makes it adventurous.

• Dopiaza Tart.  Literally 'onions twice,' dopiaza uses onions as its basis in large and small pieces.  I plan to flavour a pastry with one 'set' of onions, and make a sweet caramelized onion filling for a spicy tart.

• Dhansak Cake.  The first recipe to use a significant amount of chilli powder, this might be a tricky one - but I am determined to try.  The significant ingredients are lentils (which have no taste and will add texture,) chilli powder, sugar and lemon juice - and as the Taste Triangle theory reminds us, both sugar and lemon juice go with 'cake' - so why not the remaining player?  We shall see...

• Madras Tart.  I resort to tarts here because I already own a recipe for an Italian tomato tart, which is admittedly a savoury dish but proves that tomatoes and pastry are a good combo for texture and taste. This should be a really quite hot pudding but I hope that the natural sugars of the tomatoes and anything else I add will bring out the chilli's real flavour, not just the tongue-scorching element.  

• Vindaloo Cake.  I ran into trouble with my research here - a traditional Goan vindaloo apparently contains wine or wine vinegar, and garlic, neither of which fit into any taste triangle with cake which I can think of - yet.  Helpfully there exists the British Indian Restaurant version which usually uses chilli, potato, lemon and black pepper.  The potato can be missed out as it is a misinterpretation of the word 'aloo' as Indian for the Portuguese 'garlic.'  Lemon+cake = yum, chilli+cake = ? black pepper+cake = ?  Truly this will be a fitting End Boss for my Quest.  Perhaps I shall have to use chocolate as my Ingredient of +4 Yumminess!