Rasmalai Cake
Unlike the Gulab Jamun Cheesecake recipe I’d shared earlier, this Ras Malai Cake doesn’t have any ras malai tucked into it. Instead, \this one uses the concept of a ‘ras malai’ and adapts it to a cake. The cake, is a sponge cake, sliced in half and brushed with a milk syrup and frosted with a mascarpone frosting. Guess what? I snuck some of the frosting between the layers too – it’s the sort of decision you just know I would share with you after loads of deliberation and testing, right? Melissa Clark from The New York Times, came up with this recipe for a friend’s birthday, and it only seems apt for me to share with you. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – while my recipes and stories are for you, this isn’t a one-way street around here. Three-and-half years in this little nook of mine on the internet have made me hone my recipe testing and developing skills, and meticulously measure every little ingredient before sharing with you.
Coming back to this recipe for Ras Malai Cake, I’ve got a few things for you to keep in mind-
– Start with the milk syrup, you’ll need to let it cool down before you use it
– If you find the batter for the cake curdling while you add the wet ingredients, add a tablespoon or so of all-purpose flour and whisk the batter, you’ll see the curdling disappear
– We don’t usually have cake flour at home, check the recipe to see how you can make it for this cake
– No when you beat the mascarpone, make sure it’s cold, or it will curdle, and I don’t have a solution to fix that!
– Keep this cake refrigerated, otherwise you’ll have messy, puddle-y situation at hand
I can’t help but think that I’ve been bitten by a keen desire to experiment with East meets West sort of flavours over the last year or so. ‘Fusion’ seems like a word that belongs in the ‘90s, so I’m going to steer clear of it. I’ve experimented with some Mithai Cupcakes, an easy baked version of Samosas with Filo Pastry, Chocolate Nankhatai and Gulab Jamun Cheesecake(no mascarpone, cream cheese, eggs or gelatin here!) and some more coming up really soon! Anything on your wish list that I can help you with?
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| Prep Time | 30 minutes |
| Cook Time | 30 minutes |
| Passive Time | 30 minutes |
| Servings |
servings
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- Milk For the Syrp
- 1 cup milk
- 2 pods cardamom green
- 3 Tbs sugar
- ½ tsp rose water
- cake For the
- 2 egg whites
- ½ cup milk
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp rose water
- 165 gms cake flour (weigh out 165 gms all-purpose, remove 2 Tbs flour from it & replace with 2 Tbs cornflour)
- 150 gms caster sugar
- 10 gms baking powder
- ¼ tsp cardamom powder
- 85 gms butter , softened ( I used Amul, if using unsalted, add ¼ tsp salt to dry ingredients)
- For the Frosting & Filling
- 80 gms unsalted butter , pliable, slightly cold
- 120 gms cheese mascarpone (chilled)
- 160 gms icing sugar , sifted
- ½ tsp cardamom powder
- 1 tsp rose water
- Handful pistachios of , chopped
- Edible flowers to decorate
Ingredients
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I am a member of KitchenAid India's Culinary Council, a brand I have worked with for over a year and whose products and philosophy I completely believe in.
Divya Dandona Jaswal
October 5, 2016 at 2:39 amHi Tarika ! Iam. Tempted to try this recipe, could you suggest a substitute for eggs in your recipe. Thanks!
Tarika Singh
October 5, 2016 at 3:44 pmHi Divya! Unfortunately I haven’t tried this recipe without eggs, if there is an eggless sponge cake recipe you rely on, then use it. Just remember to use cake flour as described here. Hope this helps 🙂
Divya Dandona Jaswal
October 5, 2016 at 4:05 pmThanks Tarika ! Yes there is an Eggless sponge cake recipe i swear by 🙂 will try the Eggless version and let you know ! Cheers !
Tarika Singh
October 6, 2016 at 6:13 amGreat, look forward to hearing from you 🙂
Shreya Tandon
October 9, 2016 at 7:51 pmHi Tarika,
I’m a beginner and know very little about cakes so this question might sound like a stupid one – but my cake did not rise well 🙁
I followed the recipe exactly to the gram, any ideas what might have gone wrong?
Tarika Singh
October 10, 2016 at 2:11 amHi Shreya, there could be many reasons for it, some out your control such as your oven under-heating. You could drop me an email on my email address in ‘about me’ and we could chat in detail about this.
Poonam Khandelwal Jhaveri
October 13, 2016 at 5:46 pmHi tarika..I was planning to try a rasmalai cake since ages and your recipe got me hooked..planning to make thus weekend as its Hubby’s birthday.. Just one small query..can I use pander instead of mascarpone cheese..thanks
Neha Mathur
November 28, 2016 at 7:47 pmHi Tarika…. I want to know if we can avoid using the vanilla and somehow incorporate the flavours of cardamom in the cake .. wouldnt it give a better flavour?
Tarika Singh
November 29, 2016 at 1:38 amHi Neha! There’s plenty of cardamom in the milk syrup in this recipe and while I love cardamom, there can be such a thing as too much of it too. The cakes are liberally brushed with the cardamom syrup to give a distinct Indian flavour. Having said that, you could give this a shot with the swap in mind!