I pick the Cake by Chocolate’s silky rose cake, made for a change with cashew nut flour instead of the usual maida, wheat or almond flour-based one, and I am not disappointed. Made of cashew flour, butter and sugar, the cake is layered with dense rose-flavoured ganache with just the right amount of white chocolate and it is rich, moist and delicious. “As cashew flour is not readily available in stores, we dry roast cashew and make the flour in-house,” says pastry chef Adhiban Shankar adding that it was the popularity of kaaju katli sweet, a smooth thin fudge made with cashews & sugar that gave him the idea to bake cakes using cashew flour. Adhiban along with Rameez Raza, co-founder run the newly-opened outlet at Bharathiar Road. “Cashew flour is gluten free. It’s a healthier option to maida or wheat flour and is more suited for delicate baking projects,” explains Adhiban who studied at International Culinary and Pastry Academy in Singapore and worked for a few years at cafes in the US and Central Asia before moving to his home town to start his cafe. “While working in cafes abroad noticed a large number of people are gluten-intolerant where they suffer from serious health consequences when they consume gluten – a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and oats. It was European Sacher cakes made using almond flour and almond paste that got me thinking on why not spongy, gluten-free cashew flour and chocolates?”
The team experimented with as many as 20 odd flavours to come up with a list that includes jackfruit, pistachio, and Frederick’s opera cake, choco truffle, rasamalai, peanut butter, and hazelnut flavours that work well with chocolate ganache.
