Wattle seed, chocolate & macadamia cake

I recently made lemon myrtle crispy squid using one of several Australian spices my mum sent me from Herbie's Spices in Sydney. Another of the spices was wattle seed, which has a lovely coffee-like taste and smell.

I used the wattle seed to make this lovely cake. It has a gooey, slightly chewy meringue top, with a moist filling of dates, chocolate and macadamia nuts, and the deep flavour of the wattle seed. A rather grown up cake I would say.

You can get wattle seed sent to you from Herbie's in Sydney, however, for this recipe you could substitute a small shot of espresso or finely ground good coffee.

The recipe is ever so slightly adapted from Rayleen's wattle seed, date and macadamia nut, made by Australian food guru, Maggie Beer, on her Aussie tv show.
IngredientsCake1 1/2 cups of castor sugar
8 egg whites
1/2 cup plain flour, sifted
120g dark chocolate, grated or finely chopped but leaving some larger chunks of chocolate
1 cup macadamia nuts, finely chopped but leaving some medium/larger chunks of nuts
1 cup dates, chopped
2 teaspoons wattleseed, ground

Wattleseed cream250-300ml creme fraiche
2 tablespoons icing sugar
1 teaspoon ground wattleseed
MethodCakeGrease round baking pan (26cm round tin) and line base with baking paper.

Beat egg whites with an electric beater/mix master until soft peaks form.

Gradually add sugar, beating well until sugar is dissolved and whites are firm.

Fold in the macadamia nuts, dates, flour, wattle seed and chocolate.

Spread mixture evenly in tin.

Cook at 160C, the original recipe says to cook for about 25 minutes until firm, however I cooked my cake for about 35-40 minutes and it never felt firm. The meringue forms a crust on top, but the inside of the cake will still be nice and moist.
Cool for a couple of hours and serve with lashings of wattle seed cream.

CreamMix the cream and sugar together and add the wattle seed. Let it sit for a while for the flavours to permeate.

Comments

---

+