Week 6: Whole Grain Cake Baklava

This week I decided that instead of making a hefty meal food that I would make more of a desserts type food with this weeks ingredient of whole grain.I mainly did this to try and expand my culinary skills and because I wanted something sweet to eat for my birthday which was on Friday. I used a dish my mom had made that was very unique. It was a typical recipe for a baklava but instead if having the flaky layers she turned it into a cake style food.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of flour
1 1/2 cups of finely ground oats
1/4 cup whole milk milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoons lime juice (optional)
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons poppy seeds (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon shredded coconut (optional)
1 tablespoon crushed/cut pistachios (optional) 

Process: 

I first started out as any cake recipe should and mixed all my dry ingredients (the oats, flour, baking soda, sugar, and poppy seeds) in one bowl and mixed well to that all the ingredients were evenly distributed and set that off to the side. In a different bowl I proceeded to mix crack and beat the eggs with an electric mixer while pouring the heavy cream every 30 seconds, I did this until I had the consistency I wanted and then added the lime juice (this baklava should NOT be too fluffy, you want it more dense). I then mixed my dry ingredients with the wet ones and then proceeded to mix it even further until there was no dry clumps left in the mix. I then poured the mix into a pan and set it in the oven at 325 F and cooked until golden brown on top. While the batter was cooking I quickly made the liquid to which I would add to the cooked baklava to give it the sweet and moist flavor it is known for. All I did was mix the honey and milk parts (you don;t want the mix too watery or it will cause baklava to fall apart, you can also add more honey if you want a sweet flavor) and mixed it well, it should be noted that you can substitute the milk (in my case whole milk) with condensed milk. Once the cake was done cooking in the oven I quickly added the "syrup" mixture to it and let it rest on it. Do NOT all the syrup mix at once, add little at a time so that the cake can absorb the syrup. Doing this will also prevent you from not adding too much all at once to cause the cake to fall apart. After I let it rest for 30 minutes I proceeded to add a shredded coconut and crushed pistachios to the cake to add for the extra flavor and it was ready to serve.

(Final product. I ate most of it before I remembered I had to take a picture) 

Final Thoughts: 

I was very satisfied with my overall product. It was exactly what I thought a baklava cake should taste like. There was a few things I did differently from what the recipe my mom told me such as adding poppy seeds and lime juice. I added the poppy seeds mostly because I wanted a bit of crunch in my bite of cake and I added the lime juice because I thought adding a bit of a citrus flavor would help elevate the overall product (in the end it didn't really make a different in the flavor because I didn't add enough). I was a little confused why mine turned out a bit more dense that I had anticipated. While I did want it to be more dense than your average cake it was almost a bit too dense, this causes some issues with the syrup not being absorbed with into the cake making it a bit more dry and not as sweet as I would have liked. Though there was some faults on my part I do think the overall product turned out very delicious. I assume if the next time I add a bit more baking powder (just a tad bit) it would make it more fluffy but not too much where it would ruin the integrity of the overall cake. But all in all I would say this was one of the better cakes I had made.