In a recent blog, I mentioned how I had significant trouble
finding a fairly common ingredient ... mango. This week I was faced with a
slightly different challenge, to locate and procure an ingredient which I am
seriously unfamiliar with, despite it being common in apparently everything
(from what I have read on one dubious website). Star Anise is the ingredient,
and flummoxed was I. Sounding more like an astrological sign than a cake
ingredient I reluctantly set off to Safeway in search of an ingredient that is
common to many Asian dishes and also Christmas food; a natural connection if
ever there was one. Star Anise tastes like licorice, which I hate, and looks
like a star-shaped pine-cone, which I am ambivalent about. Long story short, it
resides in the spice aisle of Safeway, next to Allspice, and apparently has
been there all along, only to be passed over by myself and normal shoppers
everywhere.
This particular cake was a Peachy Oat Crumble Cake, and the
final result was quite delicious (weird ingredients aside). The cake called for
flour, baking powder, ground star anise, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and
peaches. The topping meanwhile called for a mixture of oats and sugar, mixed
with melted butter to give a stick consistency. Though I personally found the
licorice flavor to be a bit much, overall the cake reminded me of a mixture of
a coffee cake and a peach pie, which equals winner in my book.
My Cake:
Book's Cake:
As this blog winds down, look for the cakes to get more and
more crazy as all of the recipe we have been putting off for two years become
more and more inevitable.
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