Rayleen’s Wattleseed Date and Macadamia Cake

 For my recent birthday, I made Rayleen’s Wattleseed Date and Macadamia Cake from The Cook and The Chef.  This recipe was made by Maggie Beer for the bush food episode, and I vaguely remember that Rayleen is a lady she met in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

I was attracted to this recipe because the combination of ingredients sounded fabulous, and I wanted a birthday cake that wasn’t all buttercream frosting and fluffy white cake. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but I wanted something different.

This cake is based on whipped egg whites, so it is like a large pavlova studded with chocolate, chopped macadamias, chopped dates and wattleseed (a coffee flavour). The wattleseed was the hardest ingredient to find - I eventually tracked it down at Source in Malvern (a big shout out to Erin, who helped me find it in the shop).

This is the cake pre-decoration with cream:

I halved the recipe and made it in a 6” tin. To enable me to lift it gently out of the tin (it is a delicate cake and I don’t have a small springform tin), I not only lined the base of the tin, but I put down cross-ways long strips to overhang the sides of the tin to use as handless lift the cake out.

The cake is decorated with whipped cream flavoured with wattleseed:

I was surprised at how rich this cake was - I think it was the chocolate:

I enjoyed the cake, but it was a little too rich for me. I gave some of the cake to my friend V’s partner - he said it was “good rich”, so I will take that as a tick of approval.

If you would like to try Rayleen’s Wattleseed Date and Macadamia Cake (full size), you will need:

1 1/2 cups castor sugar

8 egg whites

1/2 cup plain flour, sifted

120g dark chocolate, grated

1 cup finely chopped macadamia nuts

1 cup finely chopped Medjool dates

2 teaspoons ground wattleseed

Topping

350ml pouring cream

2 tablespoons sifted icing sugar

1 teaspoon ground wattleseed

For the cake, grease and line the base of an 8” round springform pan (or use my handle trick above for a regular pan, noting this cake is delicate and will collapse if you just try and turn it out). Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and whip to soft peak stage. Gradually whisk in the sugar, whisking until the sugar is dissolved and the whites form stiff, glossy peaks.

Switching to a rubber spatula, fold in the flour, dates, nuts, wattleseed and chocolate by hand.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared cake tin and spread out evenly.

Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the cake is firm when lightly pressed on top.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin on a wire rack.

Just before serving, unmould the cake (gently), and whip the cream and fold through the sugar and wattleseed.

Serve slices of the cake with the cream on the side, or spread the cream on top before slicing.