I recently stopped work and really wanted to thank my boss and I knew from the very start sugee cake was her facourite cake of all time. So I couldn’t not bake it for her. I never really baked it before, and was a little nervous to be giving her my very first attempt to be honest. But as I was leaving for Melbourne very soon, I didn’t have much time to bake another. So a successful first attempt was what I was praying for!

Thankfully, I read Ju’s post on The Little Teochew (yes the same awesome person who baked and shared her Japanese Cheesecake recipe, thank you!) a couple of months ago, and bookmarked the recipe of the sugee cake she baked (adapted from Cherry on a Cake) and hers looks amazing! So I took a deep breath and plucked up my courage and gave this a try.

Ju did use almond silvers but I didn’t have that, and used pumpkin seeds instead. However, they didn’t stay on top and sank all the way to the bottom instead! hehe I must say it didn’t look very pretty, but it did taste pretty good! and goes well with a hot cup of coffee or tea. Thankfully, my boss enjoyed it very much! (: So thank you Zurin, for sharing the recipe, and thank you Ju for giving the tips!

so here’s the recipe from The Little Teochew, as adapted from Cheery on a Cake (: Enjoy!

Ingredients :

250g butter, softened
250g caster sugar (can reduce it to 220g)
125g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
125g semolina flour
50g cashews, ground (I used grounded almonds instead)
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp buttercream essence (I left this out)
5 eggs plus 1 yolk, the whole eggs separated

Steps :

1. Preheat oven to 150 C.

2. Stir semolina flour, Self Raising flour, baking powder and nuts together in a bowl and leave aside.

3. Seperate all the eggs. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Add cold milk, vanilla extract and buttercream essence and mix well.

4. In another bowl beat egg whites till stiff. Fold in flour mixture into creamed mixture. Then fold in beaten egg whites gently until well mixed. Gently sprinkle almond silvers or any nuts (as mentioned above, I used pumpkin seeds and it sank, so just stick to the almond silvers) on top before putting it in the oven.

5. Bake 150 C for 50-60 mins until skewer comes out clean. (Tent the cake batter with foil because the high sugar content makes the cake brown easily)

I used a bread loaf pan and it came out pretty nice and close to the texture of Ju’s sugee cake, crumbly and nutty! (:

Thanks again to the both of you so generously sharing your recipe and tips!