Many, many, many weeks ago, my sister came to bake.  We had been talking about making bael cake for the longest time but the opportunity never presented itself until then.  Since we had more candied bael than we could use, we also made a batch of bael cookies adapted from an online recipe that didn’t deliver, so no post on that.  But the cakes or mini-cakes came out perfect.

We adapted the recipe from a Thai Macrobiotic cookbook – อาหารชีวจิต ตำหรับอาหารบ้านคุณชูเกียรติ.  Yes, there is such a thing as Thai Macrobiotic.  Do not be duanted by the word Macrobiotic.  The cake was moist and sumptous with the salted butter. That’s right.  There is butter in this Macrobiotic recipe.  Why else would I even use it, huh?

Instead of wholewheat flour I use regular white flour.  I also added Chinese red dates to the 1/2 cup of bael juice.  Other changes?  I used salted butter in place of adding salt to the batter with unsalted butter.  Lastly, I baked everything in those cute small Nordic Ware molds.

Recipe adapted from Aharn Cheevajit Tumrub Aharn Baan Khun Chookiat (อาหารชีวจิต ตำหรับอาหารบ้านคุณชูเกียรติ)

2 cups           White or cake flour (sifted twice)

1 teaspoon   Baking powder

1 teaspoon   Baking soda

70 grams     Salted butter

1/2 cup        Muscovado sugar

1/2 cup       Candied bael(chopped)

3 medium-sized  Eggs

1/2 cup   Bael and Chinese date juice (Lightly grill about 3 slices of bael and boil with 5, more or less, dried Chinese red dates (not the candied kind) and 1 cup water.  Leave to cool before use.)

1. Beat butter until soft.  Slowly add in the sugar and continue beating until creamed.  Add in an egg and mix well before adding another.  Continue until all three eggs are well mixed in the mixture.

2. Roughly divide the flour into three equal parts.  Slowly add one part into the egg mixture.  Mix lightly.  Add in half the bael juice.  Mix.  Add in the second flour part.  Mix lightly and add the rest of bael juice.  Mix well.  Add in the last flour part and chopped candied bael.  Mix well and set aside.

3. Preheat oven at 170 degree Celcius.  Lightly butter then dust the molds.  Shake all excess flour.  Fill the molds 2/3 full.  Bake 40 minutes.