Savoury cake - Rachel Khoo

My darling bf recently returned from a 2 week trip to England for some family weddings, and tucked away in his bag was a couple of bits and pieces for me! England is SO MUCH cheaper than Australia, and so I managed to snag some great workout clothes, an awesome union jack cushion for the couch and most importantly, Little Paris Kitchen, by Rachel Khoo. What a man! How is this... he knew I didn't have many French cookbooks and so he thought it would make my collection more complete - he also remembered me watching her episodes on YouTube, and knew I liked her. I have found a keeper here ladies!!

Flicking through the book, I loved it. Bookmarking recipes, well, there are A LOT I plan on making. In fact this week is pretty much only recipes from her book - some are involved and fiddly, for a Sunday bake up when you have the time (and will) to potter in the kitchen. Others are so easy they're perfect for a week night meal, which are the ones I'll use this week. Will write more about this book as I use it, as I'm sure I'll use it a fair bit!

So the recipe that popped out for me was the cured sausage, pistachio and prune cake. It's a really unique combination of flavours and it sounded delicious - however I don't have prunes or pistachios in the house, but I do have a jumbo smoked chorizo sausage from Mondos that I got in my Urban Locavore box. Perfect. Rachel mentions that the combo that goes into these savoury cakes can be whatever takes your fancy, or whatever is in your fridge! Serve them with a lightly dressed salad or take them on a picnic. Super versatile.

Heres the recipe - adapted from Rachel Khoo's Little Paris Kitchen.

Smoked chorizo, fetta, and spring onion cake

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour 
15g baking powder
1 smoked chorizo (Mondos was delicious!), diced into rounds and quartered
2 or 3 fat spring onions,  chopped roughly
100g fetta (about half the block, I used danish fetta)
4 eggs
100ml milk
150ml olive oil
3 tbsp plain yoghurt
pinch of salt to taste 
pepper

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 180C and line a square brownie tray with baking paper (a few drops of oil will help the paper stick).

2) In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, sausage, and spring onions.

3) In a seperate bowl, whisk the eggs until they are thick and pale in colour.

4) Gradually whisk in the oil, milk, and yoghurt, then add the salt and pepper.

5) Add the crumbled fetta, and fold the mixture together gently, bit by bit. Don't over mix, better to undermix it (you don't want to develop the gluten like you would in a bread recipe, you want a light cake, not a tough one!).

6) Pour the batter into the prepared tin and cook for 25-30minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool.

NB; If you'd rather use a loaf tin (as Rachael's recipe calls for), then bake for 30-40 minutes.

Check out Eating Those Words for another delicious looking take on this recipe!