Garam Masala Spiced Gingerbread Cake with Nolen Gur

Nolen Gur or the Kajur Gur as they say in Hindi is the jaggery that flavours Bengal’s winters, apart from its heavenly taste, the gooey yet slippery, finger-licking consistency of the gur elevates the experience of consuming it to a sinful level. A spoonful of it and I was reminded of dark sticky caramel or very fine quality molasses, and somehow after first tasting only fallen for this natural sweetener. The making of Nolen Gur is a time taking and tedious process, a community of skilled workers still make it in a traditional manner right before the auspicious Durga Puja and henceforth market is flooded with these light brown ordinary looking sugar balls. 

 One mundane day my friend dragged me to one of the Bengali restaurants, with no charm or fascination for the place I went along just to accompany her. It was 11:00 am in the morning while I was about to order the regular Aloo Poshto and Luchi a timid young lad came and asked if we like to try Nolen Gur ice cream, at first instance his question sound odd and was dropped on us out of the blue, but sometimes it is hard to dishearten somebody at such early hours of the day. Within a few minutes of our approval, he came back with two bowls full of Nolen Gur ice cream, it was for the first time I was starting my day with a scoop of ice cream. With much apprehension, I tasted one spoonful of it and that was my first introduction with Nolen Gur, which was definitely a memorable one. 

By the end of the lunch the same lad packed some Nolen Gur for me with a heartwarming smile, saying “meetha kuch banayega isse” (make some dessert out of it), like a precious treasure I stored it in my fridge for months looking for a recipe that can do justice to this Bengali delight. Christmas time, KitchenAid Blogger Contest and chilly weather I could only think of festive bake, so this is how Garam Masala Spiced Gingerbread Cake with Nolen Gur came into existence. 

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