The Paan Gulkand Ice Cream Cake

”There are so many ways of doing everything, all over India” — begins a 1951 essay on paan chewing in India by M. Gowda, then Deputy Superintendent, Government Gardens, Lal-Bagh, Bangalore for the Harvard Botanical Museum Leaflets. Indeed, this is the cliché in which we revel, and in which sometimes we get stuck, overwhelmed even, though its truth appears irrefutable when we try to come to terms with something like paan and just state simply what this object is.

But multiplicity itself for things Indian is often not chaotic, but quite specific. It’s a matter of parsing it. So the use of pan is “a civility, a hospitality, a convention, a habit, and an innocent after-meal breath-sweetening practice,” Gowda continues, and each use draws variously on 13 properties of paan named in the Hitopadesha: “it removes bad odour; it expels phlegm; it expels flatulence ; it expels worms ; it beautifies the mouth; it helps digestion; it is sour; it is bitter; it is heating; it is sweet; it is salt; it is astringent; and it excites desire.” The question then: what is to be done with an object like paan that’s at once so many, many things?

Fast forward 65 years, and Andrea Gutiérrez, an Asian Cultures graduate student at UT Austin, proposes a twofold classification when it comes to paan use: bhoga (enjoyment of some worldly thing) as paan is a “reckoned provocative,” and abhoga or abstention from such indulgences. It’s simple really: you either enjoy paan as a multi-faceted thing of this world, or you refuse to! But there’s more, for enjoyments are multifarous and class-dependent. Gutiérrez further subdivides paan bhoga into royal, romantic, and domestic modes–each with a set of “prescriptions and proscriptions” derived from legal and religious dharmashastra texts of the 7th to the 9th centuries. In each category, there is guidance for consumption, and gifting, though it appears not much really to distinguish royal from domestic consumption barring the symbolisms of scale: how much to gift, and when to consume, and with what effects.

[Source: “Modes of betel consumption in early India,” Religion and Food, Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, 26 (2015), pp. 114–34 … though I’ll add as a sidebar that her equation of the term ‘Hindu’ “to refer to the early Brahmanical traditions and texts that many Hindu practitioners of later times have largely adopted,” and her inconsistent swapping out of ‘Hindu’ for ‘Brahminical’ & vice versa “for the sake of intelligibility and convenience” feels awkward, and insufficiently explained.]

Now I’m not sure where, precisely, my cake falls in these schemata though it adds one more to the “so many ways” of Gowda’s opening line. While the “paan trilogy” consists only of betel leaves, betel nut, and lime, there are worlds of other ingredients that go into making this qualitatively a different sort of bhoga: sugars, honey, gulkand, copra, nut-mixes, cured nut mixes, various fragrant spices, silverleaf. Gowda lists out different ingredients used in the preparation of beedas (stuffed paans, for lack of a better translation) in both the Southern and the Northern states, noting that these come under “non-habitual useage,” typically therefore only enhancing mouth-freshening or aphrodisiacal qualities or both, and typically not involving tobacco use. Depending on the preparation and the means of the preparer, these things can be richer or more everyday, though a cake like this falls naturally on the former end.

I’ve not much idea about aphrodisiacal uses (Gutiérrez has a section on the romantic uses of paan as described it the Kamasutra, plus the links to tantra, for those interested), but mouth-freshening and even digestive qualities were in my mind while thinking up this cake. It’s not without reason that the beeda-paan sits among the mukhwas or palate cleansing fresheners at the ends of meals. Gowda notes, interestingly, that teas and coffees that so typically end Western meals are absent in India to this day: most people will refuse them after lunch saying “I just ate.” Ending even feasts with curd, buttermilk, or sweets–and paan is far more typical. Hence, to my mind, the combination of ice cream and paan, or the paan as a topper to a creamy dessert that holds itself together, like ice cream.

So, when a friend brought me back a packet of gulkand or rose petal “jam” from Pushkar–where damask roses (Rosa × damascena) have been cultivated since Mughal times, owing possibly to climate, possibly to soil which produce among the most fragrant and sought-after roses–and knowing gulkand to be an ingredient of some beeda paan–I thought: why not?

That was two years ago. And in all that time, the packet remained untouched and rose milks were not made and ice creams were not topped and paans were not prepped because this cake had to happen first, with roses from Pushkar.

So, in some sense, this is a post to slowness–gulkand which is slow to make; reseserch which is slow to conduct; ideas which are slow to coalesce; cakes which are slow to bake & the hope of a life that is slow to lead.

I’ve thought up two other “Desi Cakes” over the years: the gajar ka halva ice cream cake, the cardamom rose ricotta cake. This now makes its own fitting trilogy.

Bad jokes aside, here’s the recipe. Note please that this cake makes use of ice cream (+sour cream), but it’s not thick layers of ice cream that you get, like the carrot halva cake, but thinner ones which soak into the cake layers rather faster. So it’s a cold cake, but one that comes together without discreet ice cream layers so if you’re looking for those, you might want to increase the quantities recommended by at least double.

Paan Gulkand Ice Cream Cake

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Ingredients

  

For the genoise

• 4 eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ¾ cup all purpose flour

For the filling

• ¼ cup pistachios, finely chopped
• 500 g pure vanilla ice cream
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon lightly toasted and crushed fennel seeds
• Crushed dried rose petals, if available

For the topping

• 3-4 fresh betel leaves
• ¼ cup gulkand (see recipe notes)
• ¼ cup lightly toasted slivered almonds
• 1 teaspoon lightly toasted and crushed fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon supari or sweetened areca nut bits
• Crushed dried rose petals, if available
• Vark or silver leaf, if available

For soaking the cake/assembly

• ¼ cup honey liqueur (optional)
• ¼ cup Pernod or anise-flavored liqueur (optio)nal
• ½ cup rose water

Instructions

 

Make the genoise:

• Preheat your oven to 425F/220C. Line 2 round 9" baking pans with parchment; grease and flour the parchment.
• Note: you'll need a springform pan to assemble the cake, so use whatever size baking pans are the same as your springform.
• In a large heatproof bowl, whisk together 4 eggs with 1/2 cup sugar until combined. (If you have a stand mixer, use its bowl so the next whipping step is easier).
• Set this atop a saucepan with an inch or so of simmering water (make sure the bowl’s bottom isn’t touching the hot water). Continue whisking until the egg mixture feels on the hotter side of warm.
• Take the bowl off the heat. Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, continue whipping on high speed for about 5 minutes, or until the mix turns a pale yellow, has doubled (or more) in volume, and the batter falls in thick ribbons which hold shape for about 3-4 seconds.
• Very gently fold in 3/4 cup of sifted flour. Pour into your prepped pan and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the cake is golden and springy. You want this slightly on the drier side, but still moist. Test by touching the top: if your finger sticks, leave it to bake a minute or two longer (use the top burner only on reduced heat, if you like, but with care as that might cause the cake top to burn). If the cake top seems dry, then stop and remove from the oven.
• Run a knife around the edges of each pan to loosen and allow to cool in the pan, and then invert onto a baking rack and peel off the parchment to cool completely.
• Slice each cake with a bread knife into two layers, for a total of 4. Don't worry if these are thin or a little shaggy looking.

Make the filling

• Mix all filling ingredients together until well combined. Return to the freezer until you’re ready to assemble the cake

Make the topping

• Note: Do this only when you’re close to serving the cake.
• Stack the betel leaves, fold them if need be, and roll them into a tight “cigar”. Then slice this finely to get betel leaf strips.
• Combine this with all other topping ingredients.

Assembly

• Divide the ice cream filling into 4 roughly equal portions. Spread one of these on the base of a springform pan. You want a wee bit more ice cream on the first layer that goes in. Later layers can be thinner.
• Quickly follow with a layer of genoise. Drizzle a little of the liqueur+rose water mixture over the cake layer
• Follow again with ice cream filling; don’t worry if it’s runny or thin. Alternate cake (+ liqueur-rose water) and ice cream filling with all remaining layers–ending with a layer of the genoise, ideally a bottom half, placed on top of the last ice cream layer bottom up.
• Cover with foil and rest the whole cake in the freezer to set for 4 hours or overnight.
• When you’re ready to serve the cake, remove the sides of the springform pan and invert it onto a serving plate. Gently remove the base of the springform pan.
• Spread the topping evenly over the cake, which might need to be set out for just a little while to soften before you slice and serve.

Notes

Gulkand, betel leaves, supari are all ingredients that should be available at local Indian grocers. If not, you can make your own gulkand by layering shredded damask rose petals (or any other organic, pink fragrant variety like tea roses) with sugar in a sterilized jar, topping with a little honey, and resting this in as much sunlight as it will get for 3-4 days.