Chloe's Birthday & Cardamom//Orange//Almond Cake

As the summer was arriving in Copenhagen, my friend Chloe had a birthday! She chose five ingredients and invited her guests, our friends. I cooked a meal including those five and we celebrated.

There was:

Rum - because she doesn’t like vodka

Yoghurt

Almonds - “No, actually all kinds of nuts please!”

Aubergine 

Cardamom

And so we had:

A Ginger Rum Punch. Lemony, gingery, summery goodness. Spectacular!

Labneh with olives, pistachios and oregano – Ottolenghi

A very simple salad – tomatoes, olive oil and sea salt

Fresh bread from Meyer’s bakery, Copenhagen – thank you Bertie

Artichoke tapenade

Buffalo mozzarella with chilli, olive oil and sea salt

Aubergine with herbs - Ottolenghi

Mejadra - Ottolenghi

Orange, Almond and Cardamom Cake served with greek yoghurt and love.

As you can see, much inspiration came from my new cookbook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, which celebrates the world of vegetables like nothing else! Many of these recipes (and more) can be found online in his column The New Vegetarian in The Guardian.

This dinner was for Chloe who is fantastic and for our friends who are excellent and especially good at celebrating.  And really, if I could cook for these girls every week I would … T O O   M U C H   F U N ! 

And here is the recipe for that cake ...

Cardamom//Orange//Almond Cake

Adapted from Ottolenghi's recipe for Clementine and Almond Syrup Cake. 

Serves 8 - 10

200 g butter

380 g caster sugar

grated zest and juice of 4 oranges

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

280 g ground almonds

5 medium free-range eggs, beaten


100 g plain flour sifted


2 teaspoons of ground cardamom (or more if you like!)

Chocolate Icing (optional):

90 g butter, diced


150 g milk chocolate, broken up
- use dark chocolate if you prefer

¾ tablespoons honey


long trips of orange zest to garnish


Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Lightly grease a 24cm spring form tin and line the sides and base with baking paper.

Place the butter, 300g of sugar (leave 80g for the syrup!), citrus zest and ground cardamom in a mixing bowl and beat to combine everything well. Do not work the mix too much or incorporate much air. Add half the amount of ground almonds and fold through. Add the eggs gradually, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl a couple of time as you go. Add the remaining ground almonds, flour and salt and work them until the mix is completely smooth.

Spread the cake batter inside the cake tin and level it out. Place the cake in the oven and bake it for 50-60 minutes. Check that it’s ready by inserting a skewer inside. It should come out a little bit moist.

When the cake is almost cooked through boil together in a small saucepan the remaining sugar and the citrus juices (the juices should add up to approximately 120ml). When the syrup comes to the boil remove from the heat. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven brush it with the syrup, making sure all the syrup is soaked through.

Leave the cake to cool down completely. You can then serve it as it is, garnished with orange strips, or store for up to three days in an air-tight container.

For the Chocolate Icing:

Put the butter, chocolate and honey in a heat proof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until all is melted, remove at once from the heat and cool a little. Pour the icing over the cool cake, allowing it to dribble down the sides without covering the cake completely. Let the icing set and then garnish with strips of orange zest.