RECIPE: Guyanese Black Cake

Equipment

▢ Parchment Paper

▢ Aluminum Foil

▢ 2 8×3 inch pans

Ingredients

▢1 lb of butter 2 cups

▢1 lb of granulated sugar 2 cups

▢12 ounces of flour about 2 1/2 cups

▢4 lbs soaked and blended fruits 8 cups

▢9 eggs

▢1 teaspoon of baking powder optional

▢1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

▢1 teaspoon of ground clove

▢1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

▢1 teaspoon of orange zest

▢4 to 6 tablespoons of burnt sugar

▢1/2 cup of red wine e.g. Porto

▢3 tablespoon of dark rum

▢Cooking spray

Instructions

1. Cream butter and sifted sugar until most of the sugar crystals dissolve
2. Add eggs to creamed butter and sugar one at a time until all of the eggs are fully incorporated into the mixture
3. After the eggs have been added, add fruits to butter, sugar and eggs mixture (one cup at a time) and mix together until all of the fruits have been completely mixed into the batter
4. Next add the wine and orange zest to batter
5. Then add burnt sugar, one tablespoon at a time until your batter is the desired color
6. Sift together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground nutmeg
7. Add flour to the batter one cup at a time and incorporating the flour into the batter using a figure 8 motion
8. Preheat oven to 300°F
9. Grease baking pans with cooking spray, then line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper
10. Divide batter equally among the baking pans
11. Wrap the bottom of the baking pan with aluminum foil
12. Place cake on the middle rack in the oven and bake for 75 to 90 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the black cake comes out smooth
13. Once cake is fully cooked, remove from the oven and brush each cake with 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of rum, while cake is still hot. Feel free to add more rum if you like, but not too much or the cake will be soggy
14. Cover with a kitchen towel and let cool
15. Allow cake to cool completely, then remove from baking pans
16. Store cake in a covered container. Depending on how long you keep the cake for, you may add more rum once or twice a week so that it doesn’t dry out

Notes

Please read through the post for all the tips you need.

It is very easy to half this recipe to make 1 cake. If you do use 5 eggs instead of 4.

Check your cake at the 75 minutes mark and if it is completely cooked remove it from the oven.

Some people prefer to cook this cake at 275 °F. They prefer the better safe than sorry method. If this is you, this is perfectly fine, because this cake can become really dry if it is over cooked and we are aiming for the moist pudding like texture, versus a traditional cake texture (metemgee.com)