Africa: Seychelles: Seychellios Gato Zironmon (Spiced Creole Pumpkin Cake)
This Spiced Creole Pumpkin Cake – Gato Zironmon– is soft, moist and dense but not heavy. The crumbs are soft and tight, and the cake will not fall apart when eaten with a fork. It is packed with heaps of pumpkin flavour and spices.
INGREDIENTS:
600 g cooked mashed pumpkin
50 g butter
100 g brown sugar
250 g self-raising flour
125 ml milk
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp grated orange zest
¼ tsp cinnamon powder
¼ tsp nutmeg powder
INSTRUCTIONS:
PREPARE THE PUMPKIN:
Place the pumpkin on a stable surface and ensure it is stabilised. You can stabilise your pumpkin by cutting off the stem end, then turn it so it is cut-side down—you’ll be much less likely to lose control of the pumpkin when it isn’t wobbling on your cutting board.
Use a sharp chef’s knife and halve the pumpkin. Depending on the size of the pumpkin, you may have to cut the pumpkin into smaller wedges. Once you have cut the pumpkin into manageable chunks, use a spoon and scrape out all the seeds and stringy pulp from the cavity.
Remove the skin form the pumpkin pieces. If the skin is tough you can place the pumpkin pieces flat and use a large sharp knife to carefully remove the skin. If the skin is not too tough you can use a potato peeler to do the job.
Cut the pumpkin chunks into desired pieces, give it a good wash, drain, and keep.
COOKING THE PUMPKIN:
Steam the pumpkin for about 20 minutes or until tender.
Remove the pumpkin for the steamer, set aside to cool completely and to drain off any excess liquid. Place in a bowl and use a fork to coarsely mash or purée.
Some pumpkins contain more liquid than others and you may find that the purée is a bit watery. If so, transfer the purée to your strainer or cheese cloth-lined colander and let it drain for at least an hour. You can accelerate the draining process by covering the purée with plastic wrap, then place a plate over it weighted down with some cans to press out the liquid. Too much water will affect the texture of the cake.
FINISHING THE CAKE:
Grease the inside of a round cake tin, (approximately 22cm in diameter and 7cm deep) and line the base and the sides with baking paper.
Soften the butter until it starts to melt.
Combine pumpkin, sugar, eggs and melted butter together in a bowl and add vanilla essence, orange zest, cinnamon and nutmeg powder.
In a separate bowl mix flour, baking soda and salt.
Gradually add the flour to pumpkin mixture and mix thoroughly with a large spoon.
Pour mixture into the greased tin and place in oven
Bake for about 45 minutes to one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean
When cooked allow to stand in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely
Serve with honey or maple syrup and cream or ice cream
NOTES:
You require mature pumpkin for this dish. Young pumpkin will be too watery and will have less sugar content.
If you cannot access fresh pumpkin to make your purée, or you just do not want to go through the pain of preparing fresh pumpkin, you can buy tinned or canned pumpkin purée . You will find that the taste of the cake is comparable.
You will notice that we have used brown sugar for the cake. You may use white sugar if you so choose, but if you use brown sugar, you will find that your cake is more flavourful. The molasses flavours of brown sugar pair so perfectly with pumpkin. Apart from using brown sugar for flavour, I use it for other baking science reasons (brown sugar = delicious molasses flavours + acid that will react with the bicarbonate of soda to help the cake rise).