Last week I was looking up recipes for coffee cake, and found a few that I liked, but being the experimenting baker that I am, I decided to make up a recipe for a tea cake instead. So many of my friends drink tea rather than coffee and I had some pomegranate and cardamom tea from Tearrific that I wanted to make something with. With all my inspirations I came up with this delicious Cashew and Cardamom Tea Cake and had to share the recipe.
The recipe has three parts, the cake batter, a streusel, and a glaze. It is more labour intensive than your average cake, but very worth it!
Cashew and Cardamom Tea Cake Recipe:
Cake batter:
1 cup soft salted butter
1 1/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup yogurt or milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cardamom
Cream together butter and sugar until it is creamy and soft, beat in each egg one at a time. Mix in the yogurt and vanilla. Mix all of the dry ingredient together in a bowl, and then add to batter. Mix until the batter is smooth. It should be quite sticky. Set aside.
Cashew streusel:
1 cup crushed cashews
1 teaspoon cardamom
2/ 3/4 cups flour
1 cup raw sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup soft butter
In a small frying pan toast the cardamom and cashews. Remove from heat and let cool. In a bowl, add flour, sugar, and salt. Mix well. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter pieces are the size of peppercorns. Add the cardamom and cashews. With your hands squeeze the mixture together to form small lumps. If the streusel seems too loose, add a touch of milk to bring it together.
In a cake pan spread half of the cake batter to completely cover the bottom of the pan. Crumble half of the streusel on top. Spread on the remaining half of the batter to completely cover the streusel. Then top with the remaining half of streusel. (It ends up being 4 layers, batter, streusel, batter, streusel). Put in the oven at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.
Tea Glaze:
2 teaspoons cardamom
4 tablespoons pomegranate and cardamom tea
2 teaspoons pink peppercorns
1/4 cup water
2 cups icing sugar
Place cardamom, tea, and peppercorns in a small frying pan on the stove and toast lightly. Remove from heat. Boil the water and add to dry ingredients. Let steep for 15 minutes. Strain out tea and spices, and let liquid cool completely. Mix with icing sugar until fully dissolved.
When cake is still warm, drizzle glaze over the cake. Cut and serve with a nice mug of tea.
-Stephanie
