Ham, Cheese, Olive and Sun-Dried Tomato Cake

mycookinghut September 29, 2012
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Who doesn’t like cake? I love sweet ones like Caramlised Pineapple Cake , Banana Cake and Molten Chocolate Cake, as much as I love savoury cakes.

Baking is fun – well at least when everything turns out ok – looks pretty and delicious to eat. It could be frustrating and disappointing when things go wrong. But, one thing for sure, when it fails, it makes me more keen to get it right!

That’s why I usually prefer to allow myself to have more time when comes to baking. At least if I fail to get it right, I still have plenty of time. It could be how I was brought up too, I guess. I remember my mom used to spend her weekends, early in the morning, trying out various desserts/cakes recipes. When things went wrong, she still had the afternoon to get things right!

For me, baking is pretty different from cooking. The success rate seems higher for the latter. Some of you may not agree. I kind of feel everything has to be quite precise when comes to baking a cake. You will only know if a something goes wrong, i.e. measurement isn’t right when the cake is out from the oven. But, when you cook, you can always tweak as you go. However, once you kind of get hang of baking, you will have a general idea what goes in, how much etc.

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Anyway, I have baked several savoury cakes and absolutely love the possibilities of ingredients that one can use to make an interesting savoury cake. Les Cakes de Sophie by Sophie Dudemaine is one of the books that I hang on to when I seek inspirations for savoury cake recipes. It is a great book, with more than 65 cake recipes – sweet and savoury ones. One you know the basic cake recipe and ingredients, you can put whatever you want.

One of my all time favourite has to be Ham, Cheese and Olive cake. I have baked it several times and the last time I baked, I added some chopped sun-dried tomato, which I think was a great addition.

If you want a change, from sweet to savoury cake, then you really have to give this a try!

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Ham, Cheese, Olive and Sun-Dried Tomato Cake

Yield: 4 persons

Ingredients:

3 eggs
150g flour
7g instant yeast powder
100ml olive oil
125ml full fat milk, warm
100g grated gruyère cheese
200g ham, cut into small pieces
40g black olives, chopped
40g green olives, chopped
50g sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
a pinch of salt
a pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Meanwhile, in a big mixing bowl, put in the eggs, flour, instant yeast powder, salt and pepper. Then, slowly pour in olive oil and milk. Add the grated gruyère cheese. Stir and mix well.

3. Add the ham, black and green olives. Mix to combine all the ingredients.

4. Pour into a non-stick round cake mould of about 20cm (or you can use individual muffin tins). Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.