Eksie koekoe

Eksie koekoe is one of those cakes that is always present at Surinamese parties. I remember when I was a little girl, my mom used to bake one for my birthday every year. Sometimes I was allowed to lend her a "helping hand." Which I'm sure was just to please me, I can't imagine I was actually helpful. I would stand there wide eyed, impatiently waiting for her to finish. Then finally I could scrape out all that yummie cake batter from the mixing bowl. I'll even admit to licking it clean, cat style, when she wasn't looking. Hahaha, good times :)

Niws, "eksie koekoe" literally means "egg cake" and is a very light airy cake. My favorite part is the top. Instead of crusting it has this really soft top layer that just melts away in your mouth. Hmmmmmmm.
The recipe is actually really basic, just eggs, sugar, flour, butter and some vanilla. But sometimes simple things can turn out to be very tricky.

The tricky part here is the butter. The butter needs to be liquefied, but not to hot and not to cold. Some may even say at room temperature. In Suriname this usually isn't a problem, since it's nice and warm there anyway. However in the Netherlands I find it hard to keep your butter in just the right state, especially in winter. Do it wrong and you will have "fadong koekoe" aka a hard custard like line across your cake. Bad cake! So over the years I've developed a cheat that has never ever failed me. Instead of using butter I use sunflower oil. Oil, really?!? Yes, really!!! Trust me, it works. But to retain some buttery flavor, I do butter my cake tin with actual butter.



Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp flour (sieved)
• 6 tbsp butter (liquefied) or 3 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• sprinkles (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven at 160 Celsius and butter up your cake tin.
2. Mix eggs together with sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt on medium speed until somewhat incorporated. Continue mixing on high speed until batter becomes nice and thick. Do not cut corners here, you want to end up with a very thick batter.
3. Switch to medium speed and spoon in the flour bit by bit. Mix until fully incorporated, scraping the sides if needed.
   *For this recipe I will be using a regular tablespoon not  the official tbsp measurement.
4. Now we need to spoon in the butter/oil. You can either switch to low speed or continue mixing by hand. But make sure you blend butter/oil equally through your batter.
5. Pour batter in cake tin (give mixing bowl to eager child waiting next to you :)  and place in the center of oven. Bake for 45 minutes or until your cake is golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean. 
6. Leave to cool before generously scattering the sprinkles on top.

TIP: If you want to display the cake, let it cool for 5-10 minutes and then gently shake the pan while rotating it. This will make the cake release the pan. Continue cooling and then place on desired cake board.