Ħelwa Kejk
Soft vanilla sponge cake with a creamy ħelwa tat-tork filling. Even though I've been creative with the decoration, you can simply bake this as a plain cake. For my version I used double the amount given, and baked 8 cakes in a 15x15cm baking tin.
Ingredients:
Sponge cake:
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
1/2tsp Salt
170g Sugar
190g Plain Flour
1tsp Baking Powder
1/2tsp Cream of Tartar
60ml Vegetable Oil
60ml Milk
1tsp Vanilla Extract
Filling:
250g Fresh Cream or Elmlea double
200g Ħelwa tat-Tork Spread (Mill-kċina taz-Zija)
100g Flaked Almonds
Method:
Separate the egg whites and yolks, placing the whites in a large mixing bowl and the yolks in a smaller bowl.
Whisk the yolks with the vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth. Put aside.
Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and using a stand mixer whisk them until frothy. Gradually add the sugar until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the yolk mixture into the egg whites until smooth.
Sift in the flour, add the salt and baking powder and gently fold into the mixture until you get a smooth batter. Make sure you have no lumps.
From now on you can either bake it as a normal sponge cake, or if you want to decorate the top like I did, simply separate some of the batter into smaller bowls and mix them with food colouring.
If you need black food colouring but you can't find, simply mix red, blue, and green together. Use slightly less blue.
Cut some waxed baking paper the size of your dish and trace your design using a food grade pencil.
Grease well the baking dish with some butter or margarine.
Place the stencil at the bottom of the dish and fill in the design with coloured batter using small piping bags and freeze it for 10 minutes so that the colours won't transfer.
Just before baking, add the remaining mixture and bake in a preheated 180°c for 25-30 mins or until it starts turning golden brown.
For the filling, you can either bake one cake and cut it in half, or else, split the batter in half and bake 2 cakes. If splitting the batter in half, the cooking time is reduced. It will take 10 - 12 minutes normally. Just keep an eye.
To prepare the filling simply whisk up the cream until it's nice and firm, then gently fold in the ħelwa tat-tork spread with a spatula. You will obtain a nice silky filling.
Toast the almonds and allow them to cool down.
Assemble the cake by layering a generous amount of filling, sprinkle the almonds and close with the top part of the sponge.
Keep refrigerated in a covered container.
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