Turkish milk cake with caramel topping

Weigh 120 g all-purpose flour into a small bowl with 2 g salt and 6 g baking powder, mix and set the dry ingredients aside.

Separate four large eggs, passing each yolk between the shell halves, into two bowls.

Whisk the egg whites with a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar until they foam, then add the 70 g sugar about a tablespoon at a time while whisking.

Keep whisking past the floppy stage to firm peaks, where the meringue stands in an upright column with only the tip floppy.

Whisk the four egg yolks with one teaspoon vanilla paste and the remaining 30 g sugar about three minutes, until pale and airy.

Fold the 100 g milk into the yolks.

Sift the dry mixture over the yolks and fold it in from the bottom of the bowl rather than stirring, stopping as soon as no dry pockets remain; mixing to smooth forms gluten and makes the cake rubbery and springy.

Fold a few spoons of meringue in to loosen the batter, then fold in the rest of the egg whites, keeping it fluffy and airy.

Line the baking dish with baking paper, trimming off the excess so it does not burn, and level the batter into the corners.

Bake at 160 degrees Celsius with the fan on for 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean with at most a few crumbs.

Rest 5 minutes on the counter, then turn the cake out face down onto a wire rack, peel off the baking paper and cool about an hour.

Return the cooled cake to the dish and poke it all over with a metal skewer so it absorbs the soak.

Mix 260 g whole milk, 200 g heavy cream and 30 g sugar until the sugar dissolves, pour it evenly over the cake, wrap it and rest at least two hours in the fridge.

Heat 100 g sugar in a small sauce pot over medium heat, stirring the rest of the sugar in as it melts.

Once liquid and just foaming, whisk in 20 g butter until melted, then pour in 170 g heavy cream and whisk to a caramel sauce; pour it out into a bowl to cool.

Whisk 350 g heavy cream with 30 g sugar to stiff peaks.

Spread the whipped cream edge to edge with a palette knife, then pour the cooled caramel into the centre and spread it evenly.

Pipe straight lines of whipped cream on the caramel and drag a toothpick back and forth through them for a herringbone pattern.

Variation, pistachio: use half the flour and replace the other half with 60 g ground pistachios, picking out and later adding back any larger pieces caught by the sieve.

Variation, pistachio: whisk a small squeeze of pistachio coloured food colouring into the egg yolks, then build and bake the cake exactly as before.

Variation, pistachio: add 75 g pure pistachio paste to the soak and blend it in, then top with whipped cream, a sprinkle of chopped pistachios and edible rose petals.