World's Quickest Yeast Cake

I try to make breakfast's special every Sunday; South Indian Iyer special, since my dad visits.  Unfortunately, my baby sitter was a no-show on saturday, Ash is sick with a high temperature and a cold. Id didnt step out Saturday, my weekly shopping day.
I had nothing in my fridge and no mood to fry up puris or paniyarams, my main stays when I haven't planned sunday breakfast.
Then my blog whispered, why not bake something for breakfast.  Now this is Mahalayapaksham, the fortnight were we honour our departed ancestors, so I had to go eggless.  Gayathri had set a Eggless Butter Cake Challenge for  the month of October.
After the refreshing success making Yeasted Biscottis as opposed to the cracks in my ENO biscotti, I was sure I wanted to go the Yeast route again.  I also had about 3 tbspoons of 1 week old fresh yeast sitting in my fridge which demanded to be used up before they simply quit
Coincidentally,  Zoe's Bake Along picked World's Quickest Yeasted Coffee Cake from the book "Cake Keeper" by Lauren Chattman.
I adapted the recipe to suit my pantry and made this cake the sweet part of my morning breakfast:

Spring onion Uthappam with Tomato Chutney
Yeasted Coffee Cake with Pistachios and Cranberries

The original recipe has no sugar in the yeasted dough, I mixed in 1/4 cup along with some Chai Masala.  I also substituted whole wheat flour for a part of the all purpose flour, used fresh yeast instead of instant yeast and honey instead of Golden syrup.  I had a sachet of forgotten cranberries in my pantry, since ash loves to snack on raisins, I decided to go with cranberries instead of raisins.  I had pistachios from my last biscotti attempt, impatient to be used.

3/4 cup whole milk
25g  unsalted butter
2.5 tbspoon fresh yeast
1 cup maida - APF

3/4 cup atta - whole wheatflour
1/2 cup cranberries
1/4 cup hibiscus flower powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon chai masala


2 tbspoon honey

25g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar - nattuchakkarai (use 1/2 next time)
3/4 cup chopped pistachios


Melt the butter by adding it to the milk and warming the milk.
When the milk is lukewarm, add the yeast, a tspoon of the granulated sugar.  Wait for 5 minutes for the yeast to foam a little
Add the rest of the sugar, chai masala, flours and hibiscus powder, cranberries.  Mix into a fairly sticky but stiff dough and spread in a buttered, floured, 8" round pan. (I only buttered the pan, did not flour it)
stiff dough, stiff streusel-ish topping



Heat the brown sugar with the honey and butter until butter melts.  Stir continuously.
Drop the fairly stiff mix in spoonfuls all over the cake pan. (I didn't and it was soooo hard to spread it!) Spread the mix over the dough.
Spread the pistachio over the sugar mix uniformly.

Place in a cold oven.  Turn on and set temperature to 175 deg C.
Bake 25 - 30 minutes until toothpick at center comes out clean.
Cake turned out of pan

Ready to serve
Serve warm

Notes:
  1. Butter and Sugar in large quantities are the enemy of yeast, so I had to stay close to recommendation.
  2. I think I should toast the nuts before using it, the sublime quality of pistachio did not shine through.
  3. The cake center fell a little as it cooled. 
  4. The dough was a little pink from the hibiscus, but the colour did not hold in the cake. The cake looked brown :( I would have had a yellowish cake if I had chosen not to add the hibiscus....
  5. I think next time, I will go with 1/3 cup milk instead of the honey in the topping.
  6. This cake was a risk, instant yeast rises more slowly than active yeast, but it all worked out!

Feedback.
Gau and I found the top a tad too sweet, though dad loved it.
Gau felt it needed some chocolate.

This will be submitted to Zoe's Bake along

and Gayathri's eggless baking for October.

Comments

Zoe said…
Hi kpks,

I appreciate your participation our bake-along. The rule for this specific recipe bake-along must contain your own bake baked accordingly to the specific recipe of this bake-along.

Joyce, Lena and I all had agreed that you have changed the original recipe too much in this case. Nevertheless, we are ok for you to be part of this bake-along but would appreciate if you can adhere more to the proposed recipe for your future participation of our bake-alongs. Cheers.

Zoe
Masala and cranberries sound like a delightful combination in this bread.
book marked this one..very different..love those unusual additions:)
Gajus kitchen said…
Nice one.I wish to try a cake with yeast after seeing this.
Priya Suresh said…
Quite a new yeast cake, masala and berries such an incredible combination.
Unknown said…
very different combination.. bookmarked..

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