Cardamom Cake

I love cardamom, Doug!

thanks for the recipe
`````````````````

Doug Kanter said:

Anyone looking for a sort of unique cake? Try this. It never fails to
generate conversation.

Cardamom Cake

½ to ¾ cup crumbs made from vanilla wafer cookies

2 tbs butter (to grease pan)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/4 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp powdered cardamom

½ tsp salt

3 eggs, at room temperature

1-1/2 cups heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Place 8-10 vanilla wafers between sheets of waxed paper and, using a rolling
pin, grind into moderately coarse crumbs. Butter a 9" kugelhopf mold or
Bundt pan. Pour in cookie crumbs and rotate pan to coat sides. The finer
crumbs will stick, leaving the coarser crumbs in the bottom. Distribute
these evenly - they'll become the topping on the cake. There should be
about ¼" of the coarse crumbs.

In large bowl of electric mixer, combine flour, sugar, baking powder,
cardamom and salt. On low speed, blend in the eggs and heavy cream until
thoroughly combined. Increase speed to medium and mix until the batter has
the consistency of softly whipped cream, approximately 5 minutes. Pour into
prepared pan. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Turn
out onto rack immediately and cool before serving.

If desired, dust lightly with confectioner's sugar just before serving. If
cake is to be stored more than a couple of days, wrap tightly and
refrigerate.

Tips:

Ø Stick with name brand vanilla wafers, such as Nabisco. The store
brands don't seem to have much vanilla flavor.

Ø The original recipe called for only 1 tsp of cardamom. If you find
the flavor too strong, go ahead and reduce it to this amount.

sf

"sf" wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I love cardamom, Doug!

I really like the flavor of cardamom. Lately I've been using it for
custards. Instead of vanilla I use cardamom as the flavoring. I've tried it
with custard pies, and flan. It's very tasty.

-Mike

Mike Pearce said:

I really like the flavor of cardamom. Lately I've been using it for
custards. Instead of vanilla I use cardamom as the flavoring. I've
tried it with custard pies, and flan. It's very tasty.

-Mike

Have you ever tried Vinaterta? It's an Icelandic torte. The layers of the
best Vinaterta are more like cookies, and the filling is made with prunes.
IIRC, it had quite a lot of cardamom flavour (and is very time consuming to
make).

rona

--
***For e-mail, replace .com with .ca Sorry for the inconvenience!***

"[America] is filled with people who decided not to live in Europe. We
had people who really wanted to live in Europe, but didn't have the
energy to go back. We call them Canadians." ---Grover Norquist in
Newsweek, November 22, 2004

Rona Yuthasastrakosol said:

Mike Pearce said:

I really like the flavor of cardamom. Lately I've been using it for
custards. Instead of vanilla I use cardamom as the flavoring. I've
tried it with custard pies, and flan. It's very tasty.

-Mike

Have you ever tried Vinaterta? It's an Icelandic torte. The layers of the
best Vinaterta are more like cookies, and the filling is made with prunes.
IIRC, it had quite a lot of cardamom flavour (and is very time consuming to
make).

rona

From 'Icelandic Food and Cookery'

Vinaterta

1 cup margarine or butter softened
1 cup sugar
2 small eggs
4 cups flour or as needed
1 1/2 teaspoons baker's ammonia or baking powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups rhubarb jam or prune filling (see below)

Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking well
between additions. Add flour, baker's ammonia and cardamom along with
the milk and stir to combine. Knead the dough until smooth; it should be
soft and just short of sticky. Shape it into a ball, cover with plastic
wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. On a
floured work surface, roll each part out into a thin disc, around 9
inches in diameter. Arrange the circles on baking sheets lined with
parchment paper and bake in the center of the oven for 12 minutes, or
just until beginning to brown at the edges.

Sandwich the layers with the jam while still warm. Let cool completely,
wrap in foil and keep for at least a couple of days. If stored in a cool
place, the cake will keep for weeks and improve with age.

Prune filling

1 1/2 cups pitted prunes
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Put prunes sugar and spices in a small saucepan and add 1 cup water.
Bring to a boil and cook at medium heat, stirring often, until the
prunes are soft and the syrup has thickened. You should be able to see
the bottom of the pan for a second when you scrape it with a wooden
spoon.
Let cool slightly, then pour the prune mixture into the bowl of a food
processor and process until smooth. Spread the warm prune filling on
each cake layer, except the top.

Arri London said:

From 'Icelandic Food and Cookery'

Vinaterta

1 cup margarine or butter softened
1 cup sugar
2 small eggs
4 cups flour or as needed
1 1/2 teaspoons baker's ammonia or baking powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups rhubarb jam or prune filling (see below)

Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking well
between additions. Add flour, baker's ammonia and cardamom along with
the milk and stir to combine. Knead the dough until smooth; it should
be soft and just short of sticky. Shape it into a ball, cover with
plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. On a
floured work surface, roll each part out into a thin disc, around 9
inches in diameter. Arrange the circles on baking sheets lined with
parchment paper and bake in the center of the oven for 12 minutes, or
just until beginning to brown at the edges.

Sandwich the layers with the jam while still warm. Let cool
completely, wrap in foil and keep for at least a couple of days. If
stored in a cool place, the cake will keep for weeks and improve with
age.

Prune filling

1 1/2 cups pitted prunes
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

<snip>

This recipe is very similar to the one I used. Except...for the filling, I
was told specifically to used prunes that have not been pitted. The filling
doesn't firm up as well if made with pitted prunes, or so I was told. It
was a bit of a pain to remove the prunes after cooking the filling, but also
rather fun :-)

Some vinaterta recipes use a more cake-like layer rather than cookie-like
layer. They're not nearly as good, but are easier to make.

And yes, the cake definitely improves with age. I remember when I made it
for the first time (Christmas, 2000) I was so pleased with my effort (it
took 4 or 5 hours in total--including the time to let the filling cool a
little) that I gave some to my mother right away. She made such a face (she
thought it was very unpleasant tasting at the time) that I became very angry
and told her that she couldn't have any. I think I hid it in a cupboard,
but my parents found it and since it had aged a little, it tasted much
better. They would secretly cut large chunks of it and nibble on it in
their room. Did they think I wouldn't notice that half of it was gone :-)?

One piece of trivia--vinaterta is very popular in Manitoba and at every
Icelandic celebration, one can always find vinaterta. I read in an article,
however, that vinaterta is not so frequently found in Iceland anymore.
Apparently, vinaterta was very popular around the time that Icelandic people
immigrated to Canada and as is usual, these immigrants maintained the
traditions and foods they knew, and passed them on to their children.
Iceland, however, changed as all cultures do, and vinaterta is no longer as
popular there.

rona (btw, I think I'm staying in Japan till 2007, so that's another year
for you to think about visiting Japan!)
--
***For e-mail, replace .com with .ca Sorry for the inconvenience!***

"[America] is filled with people who decided not to live in Europe. We
had people who really wanted to live in Europe, but didn't have the
energy to go back. We call them Canadians." ---Grover Norquist in
Newsweek, November 22, 2004

Rona Yuthasastrakosol said:

Arri London said:

From 'Icelandic Food and Cookery'

Vinaterta

<snip>

Quoted message said:

This recipe is very similar to the one I used. Except...for the filling, I
was told specifically to used prunes that have not been pitted. The filling
doesn't firm up as well if made with pitted prunes, or so I was told. It
was a bit of a pain to remove the prunes after cooking the filling, but also
rather fun :-)

Ah well. This is an Americanised recipe and perhaps the author thought
the punters would prefer pitted. Sieving the filling should remove the
pits.

Quoted message said:

Some vinaterta recipes use a more cake-like layer rather than cookie-like
layer. They're not nearly as good, but are easier to make.

Apparently that's the version that is more popular now in Iceland. Sadly
I never ate a single bit of vinaterta in the times I was there.

Quoted message said:

And yes, the cake definitely improves with age. I remember when I made it
for the first time (Christmas, 2000) I was so pleased with my effort (it
took 4 or 5 hours in total--including the time to let the filling cool a
little) that I gave some to my mother right away. She made such a face (she
thought it was very unpleasant tasting at the time) that I became very angry
and told her that she couldn't have any. I think I hid it in a cupboard,
but my parents found it and since it had aged a little, it tasted much
better. They would secretly cut large chunks of it and nibble on it in
their room. Did they think I wouldn't notice that half of it was gone :-)?

LOL! Seems as though other spiced cakes also taste better with time such
as lebkuchen and the dark British fruit cakes.

Quoted message said:

One piece of trivia--vinaterta is very popular in Manitoba and at every
Icelandic celebration, one can always find vinaterta. I read in an article,
however, that vinaterta is not so frequently found in Iceland anymore.
Apparently, vinaterta was very popular around the time that Icelandic people
immigrated to Canada and as is usual, these immigrants maintained the
traditions and foods they knew, and passed them on to their children.
Iceland, however, changed as all cultures do, and vinaterta is no longer as
popular there.

That makes sense. The Icelanders are so busy working two and three jobs
to support their trendy lifestyle they don't have time to fuss LOL.

Quoted message said:

rona (btw, I think I'm staying in Japan till 2007, so that's another year
for you to think about visiting Japan!)

Desperately wish I could but it isn't likely to happen. TY anyway! (Am
working on my kana though but for other reasons LOL)