Happy Diwali
From my family to yours, wishing you a very happy Diwali on the occasion of Hindu New Year.
Diwali is the Festival of Lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains across India and the Indian subcontinent. The five-day celebration coincides with Hindu new year, the mark of new beginnings. Diwali symbolises the “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”. Family and friends come together for a big feast with mithai (Indian sweets). Homes and public spaces are adorned with colourful lights, diyas, and rangolis. Fireworks and sparklers dazzle the night, bringing light for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi to bring wealth and prosperity to you and your family.
Embracing our Cultural Backgrounds
My British-born American daughter is ¼ Indian and ¼ Caucasian from her Dad and ½ Chinese from my side. We are indeed a multi-cultural household. In addition to the traditional holidays, we try to celebrate our cultural backgrounds throughout the year from Lunar New Year, Full Moon Festival, and Diwali. Now that Lady Yeya is nearly three, we feel the need to create more family memories as she gets older. She may not remember the details, but it teaches her the importance of cultural diversity at an early age. Every holiday however small or big is worth celebrating the little joys in life.
To celebrate the occasion of Diwali, we ordered a big feast from our favourite Indian restaurant. The chefs used to work at the ever-popular Dishroom restaurant in Covent Garden before setting up shop in southeast London. Kenz ordered enough to feed an army! Since we couldn’t host friends due to Covid-19, we had leftovers of mixed grills, chicken curry, black dhaal, paneer, and cholay for days!
Happy Diwali: An Indian-Inspired Cardamom Carrot Cake
In India, sweets form a significant part of celebrations, and Diwali is no exception. Indian sweets such as ladoos, barfi, gulab jamun, and jalebi tend to be nut-based, syrup-based or milk-based desserts. I wasn’t brave enough to try my hand at any of these aforementioned Indian sweets. But I wanted to mark the occasion with an Indian-inspired cake. Ideally, one that has a touch of one of my favourite spices: cardamom. These lovely little green pods have a distinct flavour and aroma that is sweet and pungent with notes of lemon and mint. Cardamom is very prevalent among Indian and Middle Eastern cooking and sweets.
After some searching across the internet, I opted for a cardamom-spiced carrot cake with a cardamom cream cheese frosting. Carrot, raisins, coconut and warm spices such as cinnamon and ginger are often found in Indian sweets, so I thought why not give this recipe a try. In my view, this is very much an “Indian” twist to the classic carrot cake. Together with the other warm spices really brings out the aromatic flavour from the cardamom. This recipe also calls for unsweetened coconut and coconut oil rather than vegetable oil for an extra touch of coconut flavours. To garnish, we topped off with some crushed pistachios as often found in Indian desserts for a South Asian twist.
Between the mithai and the cardamom carrot cake, we shared some sweets and Diwali wishes with our neighbours who hopefully enjoyed the cake as much as we did.
Happy Diwali friends and family!
Indian-inspired Cardamom Carrot Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup coconut oil, melted
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- ¾ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/2 cup raisins
For the cream cheese frosting:
- 1/2 cup cream cheese, cold
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
- Crushed pistachios for topping
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and line a 20cm cake tin with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, mix together sugar, coconut oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.
- In a separate medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.
- In three parts, carefully fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients until mostly combined.
- Fold in carrots, shredded coconut, and raisins until well combined but do not overmix.
- Pour batter into a prepared cake tin.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes (use a toothpick test to ensure the cake comes out clean).
- Cool completely before frosting.
For the cream cheese frosting:
- In a medium mixing bowl, mix the butter and sugar in low speed until well combined.
- Add cream cheese and cardamom. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, at least for 5 minutes.
- When the cake is completely cool, spread a thick layer of cream cheese frosting and garnish with crushed pistachios.
