Rasbhari Cake (Cape Gooseberries Cake)

Rasbhari - the name itself conjures up plump juicy succulent images! This warm golden berry lives up to its name and I love the tart sweet taste it has....
I made my acquaintance with this delicious fruit very recently and was instantly smitten. Have you read those messages in the newspapers? - atleast the ones in Delhi have them - "Dear Girl in a blue suit,you were ahead of me in the queue for PVR tickets for "Welcome", I became yours then and there - please tell me who you are, Sunny"

Well, I did something like that too - trying to figure out what this fruit was and what I could do with it! The answers poured in from all you friendly bloggers who told me that this was the cape gooseberry - locally called "rasbhari". I hope Sunny was as lucky!

I found this lovely recipe for an upside down cake on The Cooks Cottage.....but I had too little of the fruit left to make it, so I adapted the recipe and made a cake by pureeing the berries and mixing it in with the batter. I used wheat flour instead of refined flour.

I was intrigued by the jaggery used in the original recipe and decided to keep it - that along with the berry puree gave this cake a lovely colour and crust and it tasted equally delicious!

Rasbhari Cake

Ingredients:

Cape gooseberries - 3/4 cup
Unsalted butter - 1/3 cup at room temperature
Jaggery - 2 tbsp grated.
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Wheat flour -1 cup
Rava - 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Egg -1
Vanilla essence - 2 tsp

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 350F/180C, lightly grease a 6" cake tin, sprinkle the grated jaggery over the greased base and keep aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together till smooth and creamy.Beat the egg well.
3. Gently cook the berries in a pan with water just about covering it, when it softens and the skins start separating, take off the flame. Put the berries in cold water and peel carefully. Puree the fruit.
3. Sift the flour with the baking powder; add the vanilla essence and the pureed berries to the butter cream mixture and then mix in the flour and rava. Fold in the beaten egg with a cutting motion and combine into a dropping consistency batter.
4. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake at 180C/350F for about 20-25 minutes - check at 20 minutes to see whether a skewer poked in comes out clean.