January 2, 2010: Dedication; Cardamom Apple-Almond Cake

My Kitchen Diary is dedicated to my daughters. To Claire, because she is my inspiration to put into writing my thoughts, adventures, experiences, musings, and recipes. To Ingrid, because she is the one who appears to have inherited the cooking gene from me. I will pass to her the Julia and Maida books, spotted and stained with the likes of olive oil, butter and cake batter. They both, however, share the legacy of my cooking and surely appreciate a fine table.

Today's recipe takes me back to my mother's kitchen. Not the recipe, but the delicate scent of one of its ingredients: cardamom. My olfactory clearly remember the distinct aroma of cardamom seeds being crushed by Mommy on the forties-style kitchen table on 144th Street in Queens, NY. She would take the seeds out of their papery pods, put them in a small pile on a piece of brown paper from a grocery bag and mash them with her rolling pin until they were fine enough to put into her dough. (I thought it was miraculous when, later on and I started baking, cardamom could be purchased already in a powdery form.) She used it in her baked goods such as Weinerbrod, Norwegian-style Danish pastry, and Julekake, another Norwegian bakery specialty that translates simply to Christmas Bread. Uff, when I make Julekake during the holidays and have a slice, I find myself living inside a bit of heaven.

Always having thought cardamom was unique to Scandinavian baking, how humbling was it to find out that cardamon grows in India and flavors the chai and curry I love so much! Not to mention, Middle Eastern and Oriental cuisines!

The following recipe has a cookie-like cake crust rather than a yeast-based dough. Although I buy my cardamom ground, not in pods as my mother had to, the sensual pleasure of the aroma is as evocative as ever!

CARDAMOM APPLE CAKE

From Tea Breads and Coffeecakes by Elizabeth Alston


Crust
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t ground cardamom
7 T butter
1 egg

Filling
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 sugar
3 T flour

1 egg
2 T butter
1/4 t ground cardamom
3 or 4 Golden Delicious apples



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.




Crust: Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, and cardamom into your food processor. Pulse a few times to mix. Cut up and add the butter. Process a few seconds, until the mixture is crumbly. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Break the egg over the mixture. Pulse until a soft dough forms.

Butter a 9-inch spring-form pan. Spread the crust mixture evenly over the bottom and about 1 1/2 inches up the sides of the pan. Put in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Filling: Put the almonds, sugar and flour in the food processor. Process for 1 minute, until almonds are finely ground. Add the egg, butter and cardamom and process until well blended.

Peel, quarter and core* the apples. One at a time, hold each quarter on a cutting board with the cut side down. With a small sharp knife, slice each quarter thin, working from stem to blossom end, BUT NOT CUTTING ALL THE WAY THROUGH to where the core was. (Each quarter will be sliced but the slices won't come apart.)

Pour the almond mixture into the unbaked cookie crust. Arrange the apple quarters side by side, slightly overlapping, in the almond mixture, core sides down. Bake for about 1 hour, until the crust is golden and the apples begin to brown. Cook on a wire rack. Loosen the edges of the cake with a thin knife and remove the sides of the pan. Cool for about an hour before serving.

*Tip: To core an apple and similar fruits, I cut the fruit lengthwise in half then use a melon baller to remove the core from each half.