Cardamom Cake

Saturday I decided to prepare my cardamom seeds since I was forced to purchase them as whole and in the shell.  It is a tedious task but as I found out last week well worth it.  This time instead of using the mortar and pestle I thought I'd use the mini chopper I have.  It seemed like a great idea but in fact it did nothing to the little black seeds.  So as a last resort I dug out the Starbucks Barista coffee grinder which I gave Hubby for Christmas many moons ago and cleaned it of all coffee grounds.  It worked like a charm.  However now, and henceforth it shall be referred to as the cardamom grinder although a friend thought that cardamom flavoured coffee might be an adventurous treat after all, cardamom is used in chai tea.

Kardemummakaka.  Having gotten the (k) cardamom out of the way I set out to make kaka.  It stands to reason that 'kaka' means cake and yet when I think about other foods such as krumkaka or ostkaka those aren't cake at all.  Hmmmm.  When I looked to Mr. Google for help he told me the word was translated from Japanese.  Anyway those of us who speak mostly English (and some days that's a challenge) kaka doesn't sound like something you'd desire to eat.  But here I am making it.

After last weeks vettebullar I decided to cut down the cardamom by 1/4 and use 3 teaspoons instead of the called for 4 teaspoons.  We aren't sure if we are fond of the strong flavour or maybe this just isn't a spice we are accustomed to using.  Anyway this was the least of my battles.

As I worked through the recipe, which I will link here (with an interesting soundcloud) ----> kardemummakaka  I began to realize this wasn't a very simple staple of Swedish Fika to make.  Divide the egg whites and yoke, blend to form stiff peaks and mix and fold but don't over mix.  Oh what have I gotten myself in to?!  * cue Home Alone expression here *

While it smelled delicious baking in the oven I fear I may have a well greased/floured pan of lemon and scrambled eggs.  There is only an illustration of a cardamom cake on page 30 of the Art of the Swedish Coffee Break cookbook and what I peer at through the oven door doesn't seem to rise to the occasion.  After my huge success of conquering yeast last week this recipe may be a dud for me.

* waits patiently for cooling to occur *

 Some thoughts:

1. I didn't beat the egg whites enough 
2. When folding in the egg whites to the main mixture maybe I over did it.
3.  My bundt pan is too big as the recipe makes a 6 cup and it seems mine is larger.
4. Nothing is actually wrong.

 * turns it out onto a plate *

Oh something is wrong alright.

Bad lighting & a funky colour

The real test is from Hubby who comes along just as I'm trying to figure out if the cake is indeed edible.  He likes it!  He likes it!  It's moist and tasty and despite me telling him I'm sure I did something wrong he tells me that it's perfectly fine.  He is right - it does taste really good and I think I'd actually call it a lemon cardamom cake.

If I had company coming over would I make this cake to serve to them?  Probably not or I'd have to think twice and proceed with caution.  The eggs being separated and then questioning how stiff stiff peaks actually are...I feel like it's not worth the heartache when there's the whole rest of the book to discover.  This recipe will go under the 'try again and see' file because no matter what it looks like (kaka) it turns out that it tastes delish in spite of itself.