~~~ Meandering Here ~~~: Heirloom Sugee Cake (Christmas Special)

This is not a cake for the faint of heart, or with fear of fat.

1 pound of butter.
+
.....10 egg yolks.
+
.........Brandy.
+
..............Almonds (OK, healthy fat but still fat, ok??)

Introducing the star of every Christmas preparation in our humble home - the Eurasian Sugee Cake. No Christmas is complete without baking a couple of trays of sugee cake, with Jim Reeves crooning classic carols in the background.

Distinctive in its texture - grainy and crumbly, thanks to the semolina (or sugee flour) used.

Brandy is added to help preserve the cake and give a nice aroma, I think. The old recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of brandy, but I normally add one or two more - giving the baked cake a really really strong (and pleasant, not drunken) fragrance.

I also like to soak the diced golden raisins in some brandy for a day or so before adding them to the cake - the raisins will absorb the alchohol and plump up, and remain plump and juicy even after being baked.

Almonds - we used to painstakingly hand-cut them into eighths, but this Christmas, out of exhaustion, Mum whizzed them in her processor (they weren't completely ground up) and we tipped them into the batter and baked, hoping for the best. Well, surprise, surprise. Some things can be better NOT done by hand. The cake ended up being lighter and with a much nicer flavour - I can't think of a better way to describe the flavour - almondy? But it sure was yummy :)

My grandparents used to bake this cake before us. Weeks beforehand, they'd put out their flour, sugee and almonds out in the sun to "dry". We'd help to hand-beat the eggs and sugar, and fold in the rest - all by hand and bake the cake in an ovenette, a dangerous contraption that looks like a giant round Tupperware. We couldn't control the temperature of the thing, and woe betide us if someone accidentally got water drops on the glass lid - it would crack immediately.

Thankfully today Mum has simplified the recipe (with help from a family friend) and now it's one of our favourite things to make - and goes like, well, hot cakes (pun fully intentional) in our house.

So here goes:

Mum's Simplified Sugee Cake
Mum's recipe in in imperial units, I have converted them to 3 decimal points in SI units :) - it's the engineer in me

10.5 oz sugee (298.935 grams)
10.5 oz castor sugar (see above)
3 oz self raising flour (85.41 grams)
1 lb (455.22 grams) butter - we use Golden Churn
3 whole eggs + 7 egg yolks (equals 10 yolks and 3 whites)
4 oz almonds (113.88 g) - we normally use more, whiz them in the processor for 1-2 seconds, pls don't strive for grains size uniformity here
2 tsp vanilla essence
2-3 tbsp brandy
2-3 tbsp golden raisins, dice into smaller pieces and soak them in 1-2 tbsp brandy for about a day before using them

Cream eggs and sugar until pale, creamy and light

The way I see it, it is important that the mixture is aerated and light - the cake already has so much butter and yolks (aka fat), the only rising agents it has are in the measly amount of self raising flour - it needs all the help it can get in the "lightening" department

Add the butter and cream again until incorporated.

Now's the time to ditch the electric mixer and roll up the sleeves.

Fold in the sugee, flour, vanilla+brandy, raising, almonds - in that order.

Fold till everything is incorporated and well distributed.
Tip the batter into your cake tin - we normally line ours with foil for easy cleanup later.
Bake in a preheated oven (160 degC) for about 50 mins - 1 hour or until your cake tester comes out clean.
If the top and edges are starting to brown a little too much but the insides are not yet fully cooked, cover the vulnerable areas with foil to avoid them overburning.

Trick shared by mum's friend - the batter is usually so thick that it's pretty tough evening out the lumps and bumps in the tin.

What Mum does - and it TOTALLY works - is drop the tray a couple of times onto a bunch of newspapers - voila, evenly distributed batter!