One of my daughter’s favourite stories as a small child was called “The Squirrel Nutkin”. Now Nutkin was a young mischievious little guy and a bit of a free-spirit as squirrels go and would spend his days having loads of fun. He would sing, dance, and poke fun at Old Brown, the resident owl on Owl Island, just about escaping from the owl’s wrath without most of his his tail. While the other squirrels were busy collecting acorns and nuts to store for the long winter, Nutkin would enjoy himself and laugh at all the hard workers.
What got me thinking of Nutkin and squirrels in general was how they stash away acorns and nuts for times when food is scarce. Well, I can be a bit of squirrel myself at times. Living where I do, quite a few food items used in baking are not available in my stores. So when family or friends who come down from abroad bring me such stuff, I tend to jealously guard and hoard such stuff in my freezer! Sometimes this gets so bad that you will find me hanging on stuff like dried blueberries, cranberries, pine nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, etc. for months on end because I cannot bring myself to use them up. I tend to get a sense of satisfaction knowing that they’re there should I need them. And who knows when I will get my next supply to stash away?
I’m sure many fellow bakers and bloggers living in India are like me when it comes to hoarding “precious” food stuffs! Luckily for us, many of these things are now becoming available in India. I’m also very lucky to have some very good friends who are always happy to send me “care packages” of these on and off. I have been thinking for a while now, that I should use up my stash before it became totally unusable, and make way for fresher food items to “squirrel” away.
That’s when Madhuli wrote to me saying that she had seen Macadamia nuts at a store near her so we could stop stashing those away. She suggested we take a first step towards diminishing the “stash” by baking something with them. After looking at a few recipes we finally decided to bake this cake that we both liked because it didn’t have buttercream, and also because we both like marmalade.
I had started out thinking I would make it with eggs, but when I finally got down to making the cake, I had run out of them so my version turned out to be eggless! So I adapted the recipe to make adjustments for the lack of eggs. I also felt cardamom would be a great addition to this cake.
The result was a somewhat sticky, crumby and sweet cake that had a sort Middle Eastern flavour. I personally feel this one would taste even better served with ice-cream on the side. I would suggest making this with eggs if you eat them.
Cardamom Flavoured Marmalade Cake With Macadamia Nuts
(Adapted from the Australian Macadamia Society)
Cardamom Flavoured Marmalade Cake With Macadamia Nuts
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup semolina
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup ground almonds
- 150 g butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 4 to 5 pods cardamom powdered ,
- 1 cup marmalade
- 1/2 cup macadamia nuts toasted and chopped
Instructions
- Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Add the semolina, ground almonds and the powdered cardamom and lightly whisk to mix. Make a well in the centre.
- In a separate pan, melt butter and sugar over low heat. The sugar need not dissolve completely. Allow to cool slightly and then pour the mixture into the well made in the dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk.
- Stir to combine and pour mixture into a greased and lined 15cm x 25cm x 4cm lamington/ rectangular tin, or a 7u201d or 8u201d round tin.
- Lightly heat the marmalade in a bowl until warm and slightly runny. Stir in the toasted and chopped macadamia nuts. Spoon this marmalade mixture over the surface of the cake. If the marmalade is too hot, it will sink into the cake mixture.
- Bake the cake at 180C (375F) for 30-40 minutes or until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the centre. Let the cake cool in the tin. Cut and serve or store in an airtight container.
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