I may be providing the desserts to a new Indian restaurant. The problem is that my business is centered around cakes, not desserts in general (and I'd like to keep it that way). I haven't met with them in person yet but preliminary research is coming up with nothing in the way of Indian cakes although I have found a number of possiblities in flavors and textures. Is anyone out there very familiar with Indian cuisine? I don't want to push the American and European style cakes and tortes I usually do, I think it would bother me as a customer to see that on the menu of an otherwise authentic, upscale Indian restaurant.
Here's the only one I know(never made it though) http://www.indianfoodsco.com/Recipes/desserts_images/desserts.htm Got some friends that lived in I India.Could always ask them if u want... But I guess the easiest thing is to check on a search engine ALA
well, if the typical dessert is rice pudding, couldn't you do a tres leches style thing with some mint or coriander accents? Perhaps chocolate, caramel and/or fruit accent to the rice pudding over a very light sponge cake or slice? Maybe a creme brulee?
That sounds good. I was playing with the idea of an Indian take on some of the wet cakes. I had been thinking of the liquer syrup soaked ones like Baba au Rhum but the milk variations sound even more appropriate. And JV likes custard filled cakes and thinks I don't do enough with that. This may be just the excuse I need.
MJV, I dated an Indian girl once and went to her house twice for dinner. Both times they served me flan for dessert. Don't know if that's an Indian thing or just her family thing. I don't much care for flan. But I ate it anyway.
Cakes from the subcontinent are disgusting. Bakeries there try to make European and American style cakes and for the most part, they fail miserably. Also, indian desserts aren't hard to make, and I believe if they wanted to serve indian desserts, they could make them themselves. My guess is, they hired you to make western style desserts.
The tastiest ones aren't all that easy to make. I think I find making tarts, cakes easier than some of the more exotic IndoPak desserts ... Mrs. JV ... I agree with what you said, when I goto an Indian restaurants, I usually like something mango-ey ... a mango flavored rice pudding in a nice tart actually sounds very appealing to me. We generally make stuff like that at home ... another favorite is custard with mango pulp and chunks of mangoes ... maybe you could do something with that. oooh ooh ... this one is always good: it's called 'shahi tukre' and it's basically white bread fried and then soaked in cream and then the tray is cooked over the stove and you add some saffron, currants, and a variety of nuts to garnish ... VERY tasty. And I'm sure you can add some twist to it to make something more Western in feel?
Make one giant (and rectangular instead of round) Gulab Jamun and serve it in a large pan-like platter so it can still have the syrup, but wont spill all over everything. I have made it before, it is not too terribly difficult. Damn, now I need to eat some. PS - it would most likely be physically impossible to do what I just suggested, since it must be fried and a large rectangle would most likely fall apart.
I always get some birdseed looking stuff with my bill at the Indian buffet I always eat at. I don't eat it.
Thanks for the responses. I think I'll run a few of these ideas past them next week. I'll let you guys know how that works out.
Please excuse my spelling(Terrible at spelling the translated names for Indian foods, etc...) But here are some off of the top of my head: Gulab Jaum Doublemeetha(I'm spelling it how my mom says it...no idea where you could find a recipe) Kulfi(All flavors...Vanilla, Mango, Pistachio) Any of the various Ghee sweets(Incredibly rich and terribly sweet candy-type foods) Mango pie(Just a mango + syrup mixture in a pie crust) They serve the wet cakes that you mentioned earlier at some Indian restaurants/grocery stores, but I believe that this is traditionally more of a Pakistani food. So, there really are no special Indian cake recipes you could use...
