by Sarah Cotterell and Aitana Infante March 04, 2024
| This cake from the early days of The Little Cooking Pot is one of Aitana's favourites. The squash makes the cake deliciously moist, while the fragrant ras el hanout spice mix, chunks of ginger and crunch from the Brazil nuts make every bite exciting. |
Carrots or courgettes work well in the place of squash too, if they are more in season at the time.
Ras el hanout roughly translates as ‘head of the shop’ and is a blend of the best spices a store has to offer, often available as both sweet and savoury versions. Your spice mix will have more flavour if you start with whole spices and toast and grind them yourself. You can also use this spice mix as the base flavour for tagines and lentil soups or sprinkled over scrambled eggs.
This sweet recipe is adapted from a lovely Middle Eastern cookbook called ‘Under the Shade of Olive Trees’ by Merjin Tol and Nadia Zerouali.
Serves 8 to 10
Ingredients
Sweet ras el hanout
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MethodFor the sweet ras el hanout
For the cake
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