JFI: Jackfruit Coconut Cake

I want to dedicate this post to Indira of Mahanandi. One reason is because of her blog I really got into cooking more Indian food at home, secondly for inspiring me to participate in JFI event and I am not even a food blogger and finally she gave me the basic cake making skills needed for this cake with her fabulous Honey-Date-Walnut cake. Some history: In the beginning , I just read and absorbed all of Indira's recipes from the sidelines. Then I slowly started trying her recipes and commenting on her site. Her blog led me to more culinary adventures and I soon started reading many more food blogs. When I found out about Bee and Jai's JFI for Jackfruit I went a bit crazy. Jackfruit is my all time favorite fruit and growing up in Bangalore we had a huge jackfruit tree in our yard that yielded many sweet, delicious fruits over the course of the years. I love eating Jackfruit plain fresh from the trees but my amma also makes a south kanara dish called Halasina Hannu Appam . My inspiration for this cake comes from that appam and Indira's Honey-Date-Walnut cake. I have substituted Jackfruit for dates, coconut milk for regular milk, dried coconut and flax powder for the walnuts from her recipe. The end result totally floored me as I have never creatively done something like this. The cake was moist, you can totally taste the cardamom infused coconut flavors giving the strong jackfruit aroma a nice balance. My father who has the same love for jackfruit gave me his resounding approval of the cake which in my books means a lot as he is a picky food connoisseur.

The star ingredients: Canned Jackfruit, Coconut Milk, Clover Blossom Honey, Cardamom

Recipe:

• 1 cup chopped Jackfruit (i used canned variety from asian store)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup syrup from canned jackfruit
• 2 Heaping Teaspoons Dry Flaked Coconut Powder
• 2 Heaping Teaspoons Flax Seed Powder
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1/2 Cup Coconut Milk (i used canned variety shook up well)
• 1/4 cup Unsalted Butter (room temperature)
• 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Teaspoon of baking powder, baking soda and cardamom powder

Finely chop jackfruit into little bits. Take them in a cup and add honey and jackfruit syrup. Eggs: Break eggs into a cup and beat with a spoon.

Sift and add flour to a big vessel. Stir in flax powder, dried coconut, sugar, baking powder, soda and cardamom powder. Mix.

Add butter, coconut milk and eggs. Add jackfruit and honey/syrup mixed in. Combine all thoroughly. If the batter is too tight, adjust the consistency by adding little bit more milk. Pour the mixture into a cake pan. level it evenly.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place the cake pan and bake in oven for approximately 40 minutes, until the top of the cake turns to light honey color and when a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Remove the cake from oven. Cool it and slice and serve.

The end result:

Notes and Inspirational Sources:

You can probably use fresh ripe jackfruit and fresh coconut milk for this recipe and I am sure it would taste great but I didn't have fresh fruit here in Seattle and I was not in a mood to grind coconut milk from scratch.

I added the flax powder for additional omega 3 fats and flavor. It certainly gave the cake an additional layer of subtle texture. You can probably skip this if you dont have flax powder handy or dont want additional calories.

Please leave me a comment on your thoughts of the photos and recipe. This is my first time blogging about food officially and I am very open to feedback and thoughts.

Honey Walnut Cake Recipe from Indira's Mahanandi

Jackfruit Appam Recipe by Smitha Serves You Right