Wattleseed and Macadamia Layered Cake

Having discovered the great taste of wattleseed in Paper Chef #9 Dessert, the remaining wattleseed is put to the test in a recreation of an Indonesion layer cake, specot, which has fine light and dark allspice or coffee flavoured layers. The specot is normally a very rich buttery cake with a very large number of egg yolks. The intention in this version is to decrease the butter by using macadamia oil and to incorporate the flavours of honey and wattleseed in place of the traditional flavours. The chocolate and nutty flavour of wattleseed is an excellent substitute for coffee.

The ingredients (all Australian products):

180 g butter
2 tablespoon macadamia nut oil
4 tablespoon red gum honey, warmed slightly
200 g plain flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
10 egg yolks, whisk till light and fluffy
5 egg whites, whisk till very stiff
1 tablespoon finely ground and roasted wattleseed
2 tablespoon nuts (macadamia recommended), finely milled

For general techniques refer to your favourite specot recipe or use one for a chocolate mud cake or sacher torte. Otherwise try these steps:

Beat butter with macadamia nut oil till light and creamy. Mix in the honey followed by the sifted dry ingredients. Gently fold in egg yolks, and then the egg whites. Divide the batter into 2. Add nuts to one half and wattleseed to the other.

Preheat the grill or an oven with a top element to 180 degrees celsius. To bake, use a 15 cm by 15 cm square baking tin or a deep muffin tray with 6 cups. Grease lightly. For the square tin use 2-3 tablespoons of batter per layer. For the muffin tin, use 1 teaspoon, and more as the layers increase in size. Bake for 3-5 mins per layer until slightly golden. Prick any bubbles and flatten using a flat bottom glass after baking each layer. It takes about 14 layers to reach the top and use up the batter. Total baking time is about 2 hours after allowing for spreading the batter away from the oven.



The cake tastes and looks great, with only a slight sweetness, although the butter flavour comes through more than the other ingredients. To serve, cut into small diamond shaped pieces and eat as a dessert with ice cream.