I cannot remember how long it had been since I had last eaten sweetcorn cake. Just taking a bite brought all these wonderful memories back. Memories of the month of June and all the fabulous celebrations that we have all over Brazil. All the lovely cakes - farm style cakes. Cakes with no fuss. Just delicious. Sweetcorn cake says ‘cup of coffee’, farmhouse kitchen, sitting at the table in the afternoon and spinning a really good yarn.
The ingredients are so Brazilian – not in their origin necessarily, but in their usage. Yellow cornmeal is a favourite with Brazilians when it comes to good, honest, Brazilian cakes. They can be baked together with bits of guava paste, with coconut milk, fennel seeds... Coconut milk is an ingredient that in Brazil is used mostly in cakes and desserts. We have one or a couple of typical savoury dishes which take coconut milk. Apart from those, it is always associated with sweet goods. Then we also have condensed milk. You would not believe how popular condensed milk is amongst Brazilians. It is used in cakes, in cocktails, in desserts. We call it popularly ‘the milk lady’. The reason being that when Nestlé started selling their goods in Brazil back in 1890, the condensed milk can had the picture of a milk lady,’ Condensed Milk – Milkmaid Brand’. The ladies of those days who were the ones to do the shopping, asked for the tin with the milk lady on it – Leite Moça. If my memory doesn’t betray me the tins in Brazil still have the lady on it.
Going back to the recipe, I got it from Clarice, my friend who runs the blog Pecado da Gula. I will eventually publish it on m blog about Brazilian food and will endeavour to tell a bit more about it – if you fancy a visit.
Click here to see the recipe.
7 comments:
Yum! I think I'm going to have to try making this! Looks very good! I can already taste the corn, just looking at the photo.
Paz
Paz, it is really lovely.I'm sure you will like it. Perhaps you would like to use a bundt pan if you don't have a deep enough baking tray.I didn't.
Valentina, your cake looks so moist and fluffy! And your explanations about the ingredients were great, I could´t avoit to laught about leite moça!
The cake looks so good! Everbody who has prepared it loved it!
Thanks for the tip! I'll try the bundt pan.
Paz
that looks DELICIOUS. we love condensed milk too! i think it's a common legacy we share (i'm Filipino) from the Spanish and Portuguese. so glad i've finally found a Brazilian food blog. i was looking all over last year when we did our Brazilian study and didn't find any. i have a few brazilian recipes on my blog, and would love a critique sometime if you've got the time -- mostly i want to know if they're authentic:D . any other uses you can suggest for palm oil? i still have lots left over from the "experiments". thanks!
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