North America · Volume 34, The Hollow, the Ridge and the Mill Town
Moravian Sugar Cake
Winston-Salem, North Carolina Piedmont, United States
Illustration
- Time
- 3 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 56 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Moravian Sugar Cake
Makes one large tray. About 3 hours, mostly proving.
Ingredients
- 500g strong white flour
- 100g mashed potato, cooled
- 7g fast-action yeast
- 100g sugar
- 2 eggs
- 150g butter, melted, plus extra for dimpling
- 240ml warm milk
- 100g brown sugar, 1 tbsp ground cinnamon brown sugar and ground cinnamon, to finish
Method
- Combine the flour, mashed potato, yeast, sugar, eggs, melted butter and warm milk into a soft, enriched dough. Knead until smooth.
- Prove until doubled, about 1 hour, then press into a greased tray to about 2cm thick.
- Prove again until puffy, about 30 minutes, then press deep dimples all over the surface with your fingertips.
- Fill each dimple with a little more melted butter and a pinch of brown sugar, dust the whole surface with brown sugar and cinnamon, and bake at around 180°C for 20 to 25 minutes until golden.
Notes
Genuine sorghum syrup has no confirmed UK stockist; black treacle is the practical nearest substitute, though it is closer to true cane molasses than to sorghum syrup and will change the dish, not just its name.
What a modern chef changes
The dimples engineered to hold a more concentrated pool of caramel than butter and sugar alone can manage.
Rung uncited, a controlled-caramelisation logic distinct from the ladder's other rungs.
Method
- Fill the dimples with a pre-made brown butter and sorghum syrup caramel rather than raw butter and sugar, giving a deeper, more stable pool of caramelisation in each well that will not simply melt away into the crumb during baking.
- Finish under a cook's blowtorch for a few seconds per dimple straight from the oven, setting a thin caramelised skin on each pool of syrup while the cake itself stays soft.