Mawa Cake

Mawa cake! A traditional, flavorful, dense yet soft and moist cake, popular in local bakeries in India, especially Irani tea shops and bakeries. Honestly, I never cared for it much when in India. It’s one of the things that don’t appeal to you when you know you can have them whenever and suddenly start craving once you realize it’s not something you can’t just walk to the closest bakery and enjoy, after coming to the US.

Also, I am a big sucker for High teas. so whenever I have an Indian-style tea party Mawa cake will be on the menu! Along with ginger chai, Filter coffee, veg puffs, green chutney sandwiches and naankatai! ahhh!

Mawa cake is traditionally made as cupcakes or in a bread tin

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes or one loaf

Ingredients:

2 eggs – room temperature

1/2 cup OR 1 stick unsalted butter – even better if you can use homemade white butter – 1/2 cup or ~100g – softened

1.5 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup granulated or powdered sugar

1/8 tsp of nutmeg powder

1/8 tsp of cardamom powder

1/4 cup whole milk

1/2 cup khoa/ khava/ mawa

a pinch of salt

If you don’t have fresh mawa,  you can use equal parts mawa powder and milk.

You can also substitute the mawa with milk powder and evaporated milk instead of regular whole milk, but really the mawa is what gives it the characteristic taste, so try to use that!

If you want to make this cake without eggs, add 2.5 tbsp milk powder and add an extra 1/2 tsp of baking powder. Adjust batter consistency with additional milk

You can also add some cashewnuts/ pistachios on top

If you’re not a fan of nutmeg and cardamom, you can skip it and just add a tsp of plain old vanilla extract!

Procedure:

• Spray a baking tin with cooking spray and dust with flour or line your cupcake pan with liners
• Preheat oven to 180 C/ 350 F
• Mix/sieve the flour and the baking powder thoroughly
• In a large bowl and beat sugar and butter together until fluffy
• Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well
• Add the flavor/spices and salt and combine well
• Next add the khoa/mawa (crumbled) and beat on low speed
• Fold in the flour and beat on medium speed, until well-mixed, add milk as needed to get a thick batter consistency
• Pop in the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes for the cupcakes and 35-40 minutes for the bread tin  – start with 5 min less and test with a toothpick – Bake till it comes out clean. Add a couple minutes at a time as needed.

this should yield a soft, dense, flaky yummy cake!