Chocolate - Cardamom Cake

When my husband and I were recently out for dinner, we shared a mini chocolate cake with Turkish coffee ice cream for dessert.  It took a moment or two for us to realize the cake was infused with cardamom.  Interesting.  I had often paired cinnamon and ginger with chocolate, but had never thought about cardamom.  I've had other sweet treats with cardamom before -mostly from a local Scandinavian bakery and I've made a panna cotta with this warm spice, so naturally I had to recreate this lovely chocolate cake at home.

Cardamom is a peppery, citrusy spice, common in Indian food and is a close relative to cinnamon and ginger; and like these spices, it's loaded with health benefits.  Just to name a few, it's an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, aids digestion and detoxification, and if it couldn't get any better, it's also an aphrodisiac.

I loosely based this recipe on my recently posted Nigella's chocolate olive oil cake.  I cut the sugar in half and made a few other adjustments that my taste testing family approved of.  With the warmth of the cardamom, this cake will make a  wonderful accompaniment to the pumpkin pies on your Thanksgiving dessert table.

 

Chocolate-Cardamom Cake

6 Tablespoons good quality cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1/2 cup boiling water

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)

1 cup ground almonds or almond flour/almond meal

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 cup sugar (I use evaporated cane juice which is an unrefined, unbleached sugar)

4 eggs

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (plus more for greasing pan)

powdered sugar for dusting

1.) Heat oven to (325 F). Grease a  (9-inch) spring form pan with a little oil and line base with parchment paper cut out in a circle to fit.

2). Measure and sift cocoa powder and espresso powder into a bowl and whisk in boiling water until you have a smooth, chocolaty, still runny (but only just) paste. Whisk in vanilla, then set aside to cool a little.

3.) In another small bowl, combine almond meal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cardamom.  Set aside.

4.) Put sugar, olive oil and eggs into bowl of a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (or other bowl and hand mixer) and beat together vigorously for about 3 minutes until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream.

5.) Turn speed down a little and pour in cocoa mixture, beating as you go, and when all is scraped in, you can slowly tip in almond meal/flour mixture.

6.) Scrape down, and stir a little with a spatula, then pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for about 25 - 30  minutes or until the center puffs up and a toothpick comes out clean with a few crumbs clinging to it.  Do not over bake, it can dry out quickly.

 

7.) Let cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack still in its pan, and then ease sides of the cake with a butter knife and spring it out of the pan.  Leave to cool completely or eat while still warm.  Dust with powdered sugar and/or serve with whipped cream.

Makes 8 to 12 slices.  

Enjoy!

"The Greatest Wealth is Health" - Virgil

"Let Food be thy Medicine and Medicine be thy Food." - Hippocrates