Skip to main content

St Lucia Saffron Cake

I adore saffron. Sometime back I decided to play around and add saffron to a cake and came up with this recipe

 As it turns out, just today I read that saffron is used to make a traditional Christmas cake in Sweden for St Lucia Day, which is celebrated on 13th December. Legend has it that Lucia as a young girl, about to be a bride, gave her entire dowry to the poor of her village and admitted that she had become a Christian. She was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake on December 13th, 304 A.D. (She is also the patron saint for Italian fisherman, and is said to guide them through a storm). 

 I've read that in all the Scandanavian countries, on St Lucia Day, breakfast is served at dawn, and is celebrated with saffron buns and gingerbread. My homage to St Lucia is this cake. Why not try serving it dusted with icing sugar to represent the white gown usually associated with the Italian medieval saint.

And, in Australian summer of December 13th, seasonal fresh berries can provide the red sash that usually adorns the gown. 

St Lucia Saffron Cake 

generous pinch of saffron threads 
3/4 cup milk 
4oz (125g) butter 
3 eggs 
1 cup castor sugar 
1 1/2 cups self raising flour 
pinch of salt 

Place saffron in milk, and bring to scalding but do not boil. Remove from heat and allow to infuse. 

Add cubed butter to the milk; heat slowly until the butter has melted and remove from heat. (Do not boil.) Bring back to room temperature. 

Grease 8" (20cm) square pan and line base with baking paper. In a large bowl, whisk whole eggs and gradually add the castor sugar, making sure the sugar dissolves between each addition. Alternatively add sifted flour, and butter mixture, (1/4 each time) to the eggs and sugar base. Whisk until light. 

Pour into prepared tin. Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes. Allow to stand a few minutes, before turning out to cool. 

Serve when cold, dredged with sifted icing sugar, and adorned with fresh red berries (or macerated red fruits).

The photo is a later addition to this post ~ I never got around to taking a photo myself ~ and with kind permission I've used this shot that twitter food friend @daz77 Darren Smith took of his cake that he made with this recipe, and that he shared on twitter ~ another wonderful way that we share food

Comments

  1. Sounds just lovely, I adore anything saffron!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely recipe, might even make it, though I try to stay off sweets while waiting for Christmas day Panettone!

    Btw, Italian way to line tins with baking paper is to dampen the paper, squeeze out, then push into place, nice and easy!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boeuf Bourguignon (Inspired by Julia Child)

This week was an exciting moment in the food blogging world as the movie Julie & Julia opened. (here in Australia we've still got a couple of months to wait though ... and my fingers are tapping the kitchen table impatiently). The movie features two stories: the memoirs of Julia Child and the story of food blogger Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia's recipes. One of the things I'm delighted about with the movie is that it features some of my French (classic) favourites. They've never gone out of style with me. They are the dishes I taught myself as a teenager and have been cooking ever since. Every winter since I first cooked this recipe, I've warmed family and friends with Boeuf Bourguignon. Here's my adaptation using mustard, not flour, for thickening. Where possible, for added depth of flavour, I prepare a day ahead of eating, and start preparations with the marinade the day before that. Boeuf Bourguignon 1.5 kg (3 1/2 lbs) casserole beef

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble with Mum's Crumble Topping Crumble is one of my favourite comfort foods. It's warming to the heart as well as the tummy in winter. In summer, I still serve crumble (with a change of seasonal fruit) and serve it at room temperature or cold. There's a couple of ways I make the fruit filling for the crumble, but I always use mum's crumble topping; this is the one we ate at home as kids. For the Topping In all honesty, while I don't remember ever measuring the ingredients, here's my attempt to recreate with measurements. There are four ingredients butter (125g or 4oz), brown sugar (1/2 cup), plain flour (1 cup), rolled oats (1 cup). - Mix the dry ingredients. Add the melted butter. Stir, and loosely sprinkle on top of the fruit mixture. - After a hint from Chef Luke Mangan , I've recently created a 'friends to dinner' variation by adding little chocolate nuggets (I used dark chocolate roughly chopped) to the crumble topping mix

Spring Lamb Navarin

Yesterday I took a jaunt to Sydney's newest (and oldest) retail butcher. I knew something was different as soon as I saw the window in Queen Street Woollahra. Paintly boldly is the motto: "If Pigs Could Fly". In the window is a small whole pig with wings and in the base of the display a bed of white feathers. This is no ordinary butchers. Father and son, Vic and Anthony Puharich are suppliers to many of Sydney's finest restaurants. "The Churchill's Butchery site has been a butcher shop since 1876, so it seemed only appropriate that we opened our flagship shop there" say Anthony Puharich, CEO of Vic's Premium Quality Meat . Anthony was kind enough to take time out of a busy Saturday to proudly yet humbly show me around the store. There's a fine range of goodies, including charcuterie, traiteur and rotisserie. Not sure if the secret's out yet but my favourite mustards and salts are also stocked there. There's even dessert. While we were