Sunday, November 2, 2008

No Bake Cake



When my Egyptian friend served us this creamy and very rich dessert, she served it in a glass casserole dish. When I asked her if it had a name, she just shrugged and said no. Curious, I spooned a scoop on my plate. To be honest, the blob on my plate didn’t look too appetizing. It was creamy white with light brown lines making haphazard patterns.

As soon as it hit my taste buds, my senses went wild with ecstasy. Okay, maybe that’s taking it too far, but it tasted rather like very creamy ice cream. It was chilled. The texture was akin to a moist, fluffy cake. I started with a scoop, but I found myself getting second, third and maybe fourth helpings of it. I couldn’t believe something so uncontoured, unrefined, and with no name, could taste so good.




I asked her how she made it. She showed me the two main ingredients: the tea biscuit (ULKER) and the Nestle table cream.
I took her instructions and modified it to produce something that is somewhat pleasing to look at. I was excited at the thought. However, that table cream is not too cheap around here, so we limited the frequency of making this chilled dessert with no name. Of course once I set to work, I set the kids to work too.



“We need to name this, kids. What do you think we should call it?”



I don’t remember what transpired after that question, but eventually we ended up with Biscake, as it is basically made from biscuits, but tastes like cake.



I have to warn those who are taking this recipe though. I am not a skilled recipe-maker. I have tried jotting down the exact amount of ingredients needed, but they sometimes vary each time, so make sure you have extra ingredients just in case. I have had to send hubby to the store to get more cans of table cream in the midst of making the Biscake.


Ingredients:

1 packet of the Ulker tea biscuits
3/4 cans of Nestle table cream
1-2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
a cake pan with removable bottom (springform pan), or any container

1. Pour all contents of table cream cans into a big bowl
2. Add in the sweetened condensed milk and stir till thoroughly combined
3. Dip each biscuit in the cream, making sure to have it thoroughly coated
4. Arrange biscuits in container/cake pan, creating your own design
5. Cover and chill overnight
6. When ready to serve, depending on what container it’s made in, it can be scooped out or presented as a cake (if using the cake pan with removable bottom

*I was into cake decorating. Well, I still am, except I don’t do it anymore due to complicated logistics. So when I was about to modify the recipe, my mind sought to make it such that I could utilize the arrangements of the biscuits to create a design. I also figured that I could use my pans with removable bottom so I could serve it like a cake rather than serving it like ice cream or pudding. Just the thought of that would-be design sent shivers of excitement up my fingers.

So if you do use a pan with removable bottom, when you are about to take the ‘cake’ out, run a knife along the sides of the pan, and loosen the sides of the pan so the cake is left resting on the bottom of the pan. And voila! You have a beautiful masterpiece!
As I was browsing in the ‘Halal’ store, I noticed a chocolate version of the Ulker tea biscuits. The possibilities of designs gushed like a river went wild through my mind. Unfortunately, I have yet to try it out, and seeing how I can’t even consume dairy now, I don’t know when that will be.
This post was an old post of mine on another blog. I haven't made this for ages now, but my kids have. Recently, they made it for my MIL, all by themselves. So that tells you that it's a pretty simple recipe to follow.

12 comments:

  1. oh yes u told me about this recipe a looong time ago...want to try it but cream is rather expensive..but looks good! looks like u have assistants tomake the food for your blog these days!! how convenient....LOLLOL

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  2. OMG Nigel LOVES Ulker biscuits! :D

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  3. lol, well i am posting old photos, mummy :P the cream is expensive AND full of fat lol

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  4. monazza..then this would be heavenly for him :D

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  5. I loveee your Biscake, Kakjuli, I wanted to make kek batik at first.. now I have to give your Biscake a go! JAK Kakjuli!! - hugs-

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  6. lol... i had told you a long time ago that this is something that I had quite a looot of in Saudi :P

    Saudis LOOOOOVE cream! they even have many flavored kinds of it with honey etc over there!

    oh, also, i've had a coffee flavored variant of this which is AMAZING!!! but i haven't been able to get the recipe from anywhere... so dunno abt the measurements or anything :(

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  7. This looks really good! I want to try it but not sure where I can get those Ulker biscuits from (I live in London)and the table cream will have to have a good look around.

    Can I use Rich tea fingers insted do you think? and can I use heavy cream insted if i don't find the table cream?

    Thanks

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  8. anon,

    Yes, i think you can use heavy cream (or maybe you can try chocolate pudding or vanilla pudding), but make sure to still add that sweetened condnsed milk. as for the biscuits, I think any good tasting biscuits would do. Lady's fingers would also be nice..any tea biscuits...if you try it, can you let us know how it turned out? if you have photos, that'd be nice too!

    esskay,
    the recipe i got was also eyeballed..you can play around with it, but roughly that's what it is...do try it...like i said, don't worry about the design ..just arrange them nicely in a dish..if you can't cut them when they're dne, just scoop them out..in the end, it's the taste that matters :)

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  9. Salam Sisters,

    I have made this this morning we shell see how it turnes out when I get home today will InshAllah let you know. I made it with heavy cream and rich tea fingers...was hard to do any sort of pattern...but we'll see?

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  10. salam sisters,
    Heres the picture of my biscake i have posted it on facebook with your reacipe and the changes i made to it. I have included ur name and the link for this site hopw its ok if theres anything else you want me to add on the caption please let me know i would be happy to add it.
    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2064814&id=558885265&op=1&view=all&subj=30912911600&aid=-1&oid=30912911600&saved#/photo.php?pid=2064814&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=30912911600&aid=-1&id=558885265&oid=30912911600

    ohh and the biscake went down really well in my house. we hade it last night. the rich tea fingers were not absorbing the cream so i hade to heat up the cream and pour over it and it did become a lot softer...but would have liked it to have been more softer.

    Just wanted to ask the table cream is it thick? cose I was thinking maybe I could use extra thick heavy cream?

    I will be trying this again but I am going to try with a different kind of biscuit.

    Thanks for your recipe. x
    Hajera

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  11. Hajera, I just saw your biscake! It looks delicious :) Congrats on making it!!

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  12. i just made this last night and it came our really good
    i used double cream because i live in london and i couldnt find any nestle table cream and used different biscuits which look the same as ulker. But it still came out fabulous!
    Thanks for this recipe it was awesome ;)

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