Clutter-Baking

Do you ever get tired of yourself? Do you find yourself wishing you could be a better person, pray for the strength for it and then go back to being your helplessly tiresome self? I'm not about to go into introspective /motivational/preachy speech mode though I find myself in the helplessly tiresome category very often, but in blog terms, it seems that I can't speak about anything these days without bringing up de-cluttering. And yes, this is going to be another post based on that tiresome theme!

I was away for a week a couple of weeks ago. Before that, I had bought a small, orange pumpkin intending to make an Oriya recipe with it but I never could summon the energy to peel and dice it as it seemed rock-solid. I took that as a sign it wouldn't rot or shrivel easily and went away, and sure enough, it was almost as fresh when I returned. For a while now, since the Cereal Killer, I've been fixated on pumpkin cake with walnuts in it, so I searched and searched for a nice-sounding recipe and found this.

Now, I had to de-clutter, of course, and this venture took care of some quantities of the sugar, raisins, a bag of unshelled walnuts that Mom had sent me, some baking soda which I'd bought for the Cereal Killer but ultimately hadn't used, and the entire pumpkin. But I had to go out and buy flour, which, of course, defeated the purpose. And now I am stuck with some flour, which I've already slated for an orange cake and banana something else. A rotting papaya had me wondering if I should make a papaya cake, as awful as it sounds, but funnily enough, it rotted without ripening, so it went into the bin.

For a person who only baked a little, and that in another life, it turned out fine. It was soft and moist but held its shape when I cut it - most of the few cakes that I've ever baked were soft and crumbly. I followed the recipe as much as I could - I had to halve it and I based my measurements on 1 cup of pumpkin puree, because that's how much my little, orange pumpkin yielded.



Sifted all-purpose flour/maida: 1.5 cups
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Cinnamon: 1-inch stick, powdered
Powdered ginger: 1/8 tsp
Cloves: 2, powdered
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Raisins: 1/2 cup, macerated in mixed fruit juice for an hour
Walnuts: 1/2 cup
Pumpkin puree: 1 cup (I made mine by cutting the pumpkin into two and pressure cooking it with just 1/4 cup of water for one whistle, then peeling it and mashing the pulp)
Sugar: 1 cup
Sunflower oil: slightly less than 2/3 cup
Eggs: 2

1) Preheat oven to 160 C. Grease pan and dust with flour. (I have a square glass dish that's about 8 inches wide and that's what I used.)
2) Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, dry ginger, cloves and salt. Add 1/2 a tablespoon of sifted dry ingredients to raisins in a small bowl. With your fingers, toss raisins to separate them and coat each one with the dry ingredients. Stir in nuts into the raisins and set aside.
3) In a mixing bowl, place pumpkin, sugar, and oil and beat at medium speed (I used an electric whisk-like gadget) until smooth. Add eggs individually, beating after each until incorporated.
4) On low speed, add sifted dry ingredients, beat until smooth. Stir in raisins and nuts. Turn into prepared pan.
5) Bake until a cake tester comes out dry (it took me 90 minutes). Cool completely.

So do you get tired of yourselves? Will you tell me why?

Cake Pumpkin Musings Humour