I was being all nostalgic chatting with my friends from school on a WhatsApp group recently. We spoke at length about school, monsoons, teachers, and of course food. I instantly went back to jamuns. One reason I loved the mostly tart, rarely sweet fruit is how it gave me a purple tainted tongue every single time I ate a handful of them. I thought I’d add these little fruits to my usual sponge batter to see what becomes of it. And it was delicious! To take it a little further, I made a jamun jam/coulis of sorts to top the cake with. I also added the juice of a lemon to give it a fresh and zingy taste.
Ingredients: Flour - 1 cup Butter - 1/2 cup Sugar - 3/4 cup Eggs - 2 Vanilla - 1 tsp Lemon juice - of one lemon Baking powder - 1.5 tsp Salt - a pinch (if you're using salted butter then skip adding salt) Jamun - 3/4 cup pitted (I scraped the fruit off the seeds) Topping: Jamun - 1/2 cup pitted (I scraped the fruit off the seeds) Sugar - 1 tbsp Honey - 1 tsp Butter - 1 tbsp
Method: Preheat oven at 180C while you prepare the batter. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time and mix well. Add the jamun, keeping a handful of pieces for later. Add flour with the baking powder. Fold the flour into the egg mixture just till it's incorporated well. Don't over mix. Pour batter into a loaf tin and stick a few pieces of the jamun on top. Bake for 40-45 mins or till it's golden brown on top. For the topping, cook together the ingredients mentioned with a splash of water. Cook it till the fruit softens and you can mash it with the back of a spoon. Let both the cake and topping cool down. Once they do, slather the cake with the jamun topping and serve.