Magic custard cake with summer fruit

 

I'm not sure I completely get the thing with custard. I mean, it's not bad, I wouldn't spit in a bowl of custard, but at the same time it's everywhere. The Culinary Consultant loves his custard, I'm sure he would be happy just eating it out of the tub with a spoon. If we have pudding with custard I know the pudding is there just for show, and the correct custard to pudding ratio is at least 3:1. And it seems like my Culinary Consultant is not the only British male who likes his custard. The Toddster, who is the Culinary Consultant equivalent on the lovely blog The English Kitchen, also seems to love his custard. So when I saw the recipe for this Custard Cake on the blog and read about how the Toddster loves his custard, I had to laugh out loud and obviously also decided I need to bake this cake for the Culinary Consultant. 

It's a very simple cake to put together, but you don't quite get away with doing it in one bowl as you need another bowl for whipping the egg whites. And it uses only basic ingredients you should have at hand at any time. It doesn't take many minutes to prepare. The hard thing is to wait for the necessary three hours while the cake cools. And as the original recipe says, please be aware that the batter is very runny and you will think this won't work at all and that you have done something wrong. You haven't. It will work. But don't use a springform pan!

Magic custard cake (serves 8):
4 eggs at room temperature
2 tbsp water
150 g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract (I used the equivalent amount of vanilla paste)
125 g butter, melted
115 g all purpose flour
500 ml milk
To serve:
icing sugar
berries or fruit (I used strawberries and rhubarb compote)

The howto:
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C. Carefully butter a cake tin (8 inches in diameter). I used a silicone cake tin and didn't prepare it in any way, and had no problems with sticking. 

Separate eggs into two bowls. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add water, sugar and vanilla to the egg yolks and beat until light and fluffy. Add the melted butter and keep whisking. Add the flour and milk, and whisk until a smooth batter forms. Gently fold in the egg whites. Bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown. Let cool for at least 3 hours before dusting with icing sugar and serving with fruit or berries.

The verdict:
This is what it says on the tin, custard cake. It tastes like custard, but it's a cake. You won't believe it will ever become an actual cake when you pour the runny batter into the cake tin, but somehow magically it will turn into a cake after all. I think mine could have done with just a few minutes less in the oven, as the middle of the cake turned quite solid whereas the pictures on the blog with the original recipe it looked like the middle stays just a little bit gooey. But it was really yummy especially with rhubarb and strawberries on top. Definitely a summer dessert I will try again, I think this would be a great alternative for a cheesecake for a BBQ or other summer get-together.