April 6, 2018
Monthly Mystery Munchies #34: Savoury Cake
You read that right: Savoury. Cake.
Whoever says cake has to be sweet? Because if you are anything like my mother-in-law, baking a sweet cake would just be a waste of sugar, butter, flour and eggs as she doesn’t like sweet stuff. Typically cakes. Which automatically means that a typically sweet, spongy, creamy birthday cake would be lost on her.
So how?
That’s when we thought about making a cake savoury. She loves cheese – lots of it, though cheese cake is a no-no. We somehow have to use real, hardcore cheese. Ironically, that has actually inspired the theme for this month’s mystery munchies where the challenge is to use berries and pistachios.
Sold yet? No? you will be after this because what you see in the above picture is only half complete.
What you don’t see is the soft, gooey Camembert cheese sprinkled with crushed pistachios underneath layers and layers of filo delicately brought together with melted butter. It is then topped again with blueberry sauce before crinkling the filo together at the top, drizzle it with more blueberry sauce and pistachios.
You cannot go wrong with this. It’s fail-proof and I highly recommend it:
- 1 block of Camembert cheese
- 5-8 sheets of filos
- Melted butter
- One cup of blueberries
- 1/3 cup sugar and some water
- 100g crushed pistachios
- Mix fresh blueberries with sugar and water in a hot pan. Reduce the mixture into a sauce. Cool and set aside.
- Layer 5-8 sheets of filo one on top of the other with melted butter in between each sheets
- Place the camembert in the middle of the filo sheets
- Glaze the top of the cheese with blueberry sauce and top with the nuts
- Cover the cheese by crinkling the filo sheets together.
- Spread melted butter around the filo
- Top it wth the leftover sauce and sprinkle more pistachios
- Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the filo turns brown
- Serve hot!
- Feel free to layer with more cheese on top or substitute with a different type of cheese such as brie.
A great substitute for those who are adverse to sweet cakes.
This has once again been a good exercise to stretch the creativity of what’s possible with simple ingredients such as berries and pistachios. Knowing Gen’s affinity for berries and nuts herself (pun on nuts intended!). I have no doubt that Gen would double the pleasure with her berry-nutty creation for this month.
Let’s pop over to check what’s on her plate at Gen’s #34 Monthly Mystery Munchies she’ll be making with this crazy, little twist.
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Monthly Mystery Munchies features every first Friday of the month in collaboration with Gen, Author of Eat, Play, Clove. Stay tuned with next month’s edition from the Grubbs ‘n Critters’ Kitchen!
This is revolutionary! You know how I feel about cheese – gooey camembert! My oh my! What an ingenuitive way of incorporating the berries and pistachios in an untraditional but marvellous way. Ann, this is quite possibly my favourite recipe yet! I can’t wait to try it. I am genuinely bowled over. You f-n rock! XOXO
This is such a great idea – those flavors must just play off each other in a magnificent way!!