Jujube and Me

Have you ever substituted 1 cup of sugar for 1 cup of salt in a recipe? Do you know what that does to a recipe??? I'm sure you can imagine.  It just so happens that I had a near salt over-dose experience recently. As a matter of fact it happened this very day. Luckily I caught the mistake before I went too far into the recipe. I did, however, send one stick of butter, one cup of salt, one cup of water and two cups of minced jujubes into the abyss of my sink.

So what happened was that I was lounging around thinking today will be my very last free day. Tomorrow I was going to start my first day of training for a new job (that got cancelled by the way). So thinking today would be my last free day, I thought it would be a good day to try the jujube cake recipe I saw on the internet. It sounded easy enough: melt half cup butter, one cup sugar, one cup water and two cups minced dried jujubes. Then add dry ingredients to mixture.


Everything was going swimmingly easy. I had all the jujubes minced, I melted the butter, added the sugar, the water, then the jujubes. And now time to add the flour…or so I thought. Suddenly something inside me told me to taste this jujube syrup. I got a little bit of the mixture on a spoon, dipped in my finger and put it to my mouth… hmmm that’s strange... it’s salty. Actually it was VERY salty! That’s not right I thought, how can it be salty?  I didn't use any salty ingredients, I didn't add any salt! How can it be so salty??? And then it hit me like a ton bricks. I mistakenly mixed the canister of salt for the canister of sugar! NOOOO!!! I screamed out loud in the kitchen as I looked up to the ceiling for signs of relief.

Actually, I wasn’t that dramatic, but I was slightly frazzled. To my defense, my salt and sugar canisters do look very similar. But usually I can distinguish between the obvious differences in sizes. Oh well, $*&% happens. I tried to salvage the jujubes by rinsing them in water, but all efforts proved futile. A cup of salt is a vicious thing. And so to the abyss it went, and I started over. Don’t worry this story has a happy ending. My SECOND attempt at Jujube cake turned out very well and I successfully baked a handsomely sweet cake.

It's hard to explain the flavor of jujube.  As a cake, the jujube reminds me of fig newtons.  It has a mature taste.  The jujube imparts a very deep, rich sweetness when combined with the sugar and butter.  I found the recipe from hot dishes dot com. The cake goes perfect with a cup of hot tea. Tonight my tea of choice was a mixed berry tea with vanilla.