Coffee’s in dis flask and tea’s in dat one,’ said our beaming Goan homestay owner. ‘And you try dese also,’ she said, thunking a plate of coconut cookies and slices of cake. ‘My friend makes them here only,’ she said, nodding in the general direction of the village market. The cookies were scrumptious. But one bite into the cake sent my head whirling. It had the texture of a very soft rava idli, and had the strangest combination of flavours. I detected a hint of rose water, and from another side came the robust flavour of roasted coconut. Another bite and I was in love. ‘Like?’ asked our host. ‘It’s called Bath,’ she said. Or that’s what I thought I heard. When we were leaving, I asked her to write down the name of the cake, so that I could go get some at the bakery. ‘Sure,’ she said and wrote it down. ‘Bolo de batica,’ was what she wrote on the paper. I looked at her quizzically. ‘It’s Portuguese, but we make it better,’ she said with a laugh. And thus was born my fascination with this very uniquely Goan, very delicious semolina cake.
Back home in Bengaluru, I decided to read up on the cake. Batica or Bolo de rulao (Cream of wheat cake), is a poor man’s cake, said some sources. It’s a small-town speciality, rarely found in the big heaving Goan metropolises of Panjim and Margao, they said. Known locally as Bath, it is traditionally made during Christmastime, served with a variety of mixed spices. Some recipes mentioned a pastry lattice placed on top of the batter during baking, giving it the appearance of a pie. Bath cake was often made as a gift to the groom’s family as part of a bride’s dowry, and also during important festivals and feasts. Luckily our homestay owner didn’t wait for an occasion to serve it up to us, but all that information certainly did make me hungry for a large slice!
I set about trying to recreate the cake at home. Rava – check. Eggs – check. Coconut – climb, hack, peel, break, grate – check. Rose water – Uh oh. What to do, what to do? I ransacked my mother’s kitchen for a substitute, and found one. Well, kinda. It was a jar of Gulkand (rose-petals in syrup). Into the batter went a couple of tablespoons, along with lots of coconut gratings, semolina, butter and sugar. I baked it for what seemed like an appropriate time and took it out, all eager to taste it. It smelled perfectly fine, but that’s where it ended. The semolina had a gritty, hard consistency, like broken parboiled rice. ‘Maybe you should soak it,’ said my mother, imparting her rava idli advice. ‘I always soak the rava in yoghurt before making the idli,’ she said. I wasn’t too sure, but I had some left over batter anyway, so I bunged it in the fridge and decided to bake it the next day. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the whipped up egg whites in the batter wouldn’t deflate, or that the baking powder wouldn’t lose its magical powers. And to my surprise, the cake turned out beautifully soft and moist the next day, flooding my home with a delicious coconutty, rosy aroma, and transporting me back instantly to the beautiful environs of my Goan homestay.
So if you want a quick sensory holiday to Goa and don’t have the time or resources to go there in person, try out this cake recipe. I bet you too will turn into a Batica convert, just like I did.
