Sarsi/Root Beer Cake

Sarsi Cake

Sarsi is one soft drink that you either love or hate. My Chinese friends said it reminded them of some toothpaste they used to use in their childhood. I only used Lion toothpaste when I was a kid and it tasted of grape or strawberry. Hub said it tasted like medicine. Anyway sarsi is quite like root beer (I believe the herb sarsaparilla goes into making both drinks) and I love root beer.

I decided to experiment with the drink and used it to bake a Sarsi Cake this morning. I used the recipe for yesterday's Light Chocolate Cake, substituting the hot water with the sarsi. The cake turned out to be less tall and had craters on the surface (probably caused by the gas in the drink). The texture was also quite different, I would call it a cross between cake and kueh.

You could taste the sarsi in the cake, but it wasn't strong. I thought of making a sarsi-flavoured icing to go with it, but changed my mind as we've been eating cake almost every day this week. The kids are hyper enough as it is.

After I've finished baking the cake, I cycled from the house (down the path I've been meaning to try) to the kids' school. It took about 25 minutes and was actually quite an easy journey, though I've been sworn at a few times for being on the wrong side of the road. Parked my bike in the school as 3 teachers have already had their bikes stolen at the new mall opposite, so I wasn't going to take any chances.

Shopped at Gap Kids and then ate a bowl of beef noodles in a Taiwanese eatery. I must do this more often.

Sarsi Cake :

125g flour

1 tsp baking powder

100g sugar

100g butter or margarine (softened)

2 eggs

2 tbsp soluble cocoa powder

125ml sarsi or root beer

Preheat the oven to 180°C/365°F.

Sift the flour and baking powder together into a large mixing bowl.

Make a well in the middle and break the eggs into it.

Add the sugar and butter on top of the flour (or the sugar may cook the eggs).

Mix the cocoa powder and sarsi together in a separate bowl and pour into the large mixing bowl.

Whisk everything together till you get a smooth batter.

Pour into a paper-lined 20-cm round mould and bake in the hot oven for around 30 minutes.

Craters will usually form in this cake because of the gas in the sarsi so do not be alarmed. The inside of the cake may also have a slight honeycomb structure.

Let the cake cool for a few minutes in its mould then turn it over onto a cooling rack to be cooled further.