Didn't really expect that papaya could be turned into a cake or bread, until this week. This experiment came about all because of my inexperience in choosing papaya from the supermarket last week. I chose the prettiest instead of the ripest. I then had, even after waiting for 3 days, a papaya that wouldn't ripened evenly. The top half and the bottom were already turning orange but the middle was still so green. Worse, some of the latex from the skin had begun to ooze out from a tiny hole which somehow managed to escape my preinspection prior to purchasing it. So what else could I do apart from cutting it. I had hoped that it might be ripe enough to eat but that was not the case. Which brought me to a while new knowledge of papaya as another star in the culinary world!
Before this week, I know papaya could be eaten raw, made into drinks, ingredient in the famous thai salad, and boiled into a soup, although the latter I only knew about just recently. Having a whole container of cut up papaya, neither ripe nor raw, I was adamant not to waste them. So I searched the web for recipes and ideas.
What I came across was a goldmine of information on papaya recipes. Seemed like I was living the limited papaya knowledge life. Out there, papayas are being turned into salads, used in a wide range of cooking recipes, made into breads, cakes, tarts, you name it!
Do began my readings and choosing of the best recipe for my papaya.
After a few days of reading and digesting, I narrowed 2 kinds of things that I most liked, soups and cake-bread recipes. Soup recipes varied widely, from Asian to western styled soups. I could do the western style soup easily enough as it called for minimal ingredients whereas most of the Asian soups wanted ingredients which I didn't have.
Me being me, though, after a while, I gravitated strongly towards the cake-bread recipes. They just seemed more appealing to me. Sifting through the mountain of recipes online, I finally settled one, which ironically was not for a papaya cake bread recipe. It was for recipe for a banana cake bread instead, and I adapted it for my version of papaya cake bread, substituting the banana with, of course, papaya.
I had to tweak the recipe a little for the lack of ingredients, namely butter and baking soda. In lieu, I used oil and baking powder. Not wanting a very sweet cake bread, I also lessened the sugar amount, but just slightly. I added some raisins, just as a safety net, in case I didn't like the outcome of the papaya cake bread. At least the raisins will provide some familiar taste and texture.
It was a very fast cake to prepare. I pureed about 2 and a third cups of papaya in the new blender, then measured out 2 cups of all purpose flour, 2 and a half teaspoonful of baking powder, half a cup of brown sugar, 3 eighths of a cup of oil, and beat 2 eggs flavored with some vanilla essense, cinnamon powder and 5 spice powder in a cup.
The flour, the baking powder were mixed together with some sprinkling of salt in a bowl. I added the oil into the eggs and mixed well. Then, I poured the wet ingredients went into dry ingredients, stirring it slowly and gently. The papaya puree went in 2 batches, with me constantly mixing slowly, trying really hard to do what bakers called overmixing.
The batter was slightly heavier than what I was accustomed to create. It was a batter where people in cake world calls quick bread batter, just mixing around the batter just enough before pouring into the loaf pan to bake. I changed this too, as I did not have any loaf pan and instead used my spring form pan.
I waited for almost 40 minutes for the oven to do its magic at 170 degrees celsius approximately.
Again,it was a very long, restless and apprehensive wait. I was a little anxious in the early minutes when I noticed the batter was just not changing into anything. The uneven top was not smoothening out, as a usual cake batter that used creaming method does but instead holding out to the original state still. This of course stemmed out only because I was trying too hard to be a smarty pants and subbed the original call of butter with oil. Oh, well, resigning to fate thereafter, with my fingers kept crossed all the time, praying for a good enough outcome if excellence decided to abandon me.
So imagine my ecstasy upon finding the cake bread done so prettily in the end. The color was just so sweet, a beautiful mix of soft red with golden brown and dots of dark raisins littered obout. The cake bread didn't rise up too high but did it so evenly well, that I was so proud of myself for staying clear of the temperature dial on the oven. I did have the tendency to panic and would then normally start to play around with the oven. I didn't this time.
I couldn't wait to cut into the case bread. The texture was soft, slightly crumbly when it was still hit.
The smell was very nice, nothing overpowering, and certainly no hint of anything papaya in there. Waiting for it too cool off on the wire rack was torturous, as the wonderful smell and the lovely sight was just in front of me. But wait I did yesterday and indeed it was well worth the wait. Really one of my best-est cake ever made. Thank you!!!
