Tamarind, date and walnut cake

I’ve had a block of tamarind pulp hanging around in the fridge, from some curry or other a while back, so this seemed a perfect opportunity to use some of it up. It’s another delicious Dan Lepard recipe, from the Guardian Weekend. Here’s the recipe.

Thing is, pulp ain’t paste – it’s still got the stones in it, so I increased the quantities, then laboriously picked up the stones. In the Dan Lepard forums here, they discuss paste and he links the brand he used, which is concentrated.

This is a cake made by melting the butter, and beating everything together – yet it’s surprisingly light. It’s delicious. Mine probably wasn’t not tamarind-y enough, but it’s given a lovely extra tang by the icing – made with lemon juice and freshly-ground cardamon (one of my fave spices for sweets). Oh, and my icing was made with Billington’s Natural Golden Icing unrefined cane sugar, hence it’s brown-ish colour, which I think quite suited the wholesome style of cake.