Oh boy. This is an Armenian version of a coffee cake, but not quite as sweet. It is however, wonderfully delicious! The original recipe called for nutmeg, which I used, but I also added some cardamom which just gave it the most amazing flavor.
The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake. I chose to make the nutmeg cake for this month's challenge, but have the nazook recipe tucked away for later.
Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 cup 2% milk
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups cake flour (280 grams)
- 2 tsp single acting baking powder (aluminum free)
- 1 ½ cups light brown sugar (350 grams)
- 1 ¼ sticks unsalted butter(150 grams)
- ½ cup finely chopped walnuts
- 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
- 1 egg white
Method:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Mix baking soda in to the milk and set aside.
- Put flour, baking powder, brown sugar in food processor and pulse until mixed.
- Add in the butter and pulse until a tan crumb forms.
- Pour half the crumb into a spring form pan (Mine was 10 inches, 9 inches would make a thicker cake but all I have is 10”). Press to form a crust on the bottom of the pan.
- Add the egg white, milk and baking soda mixture, and spices to food processor, and mix until a thin, slightly lumpy batter is formed.
- Pour batter over crust and gently sprinkle with walnuts.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes.
- Cool in pan, then remove and serve.
Some of my fellow participants reported problems with the batter not firming up or with the nuts migrating down in to the cake. I made sure to use finely chopped nuts and gently sprinkled them on the top. Not sure if the fact that I used a larger spring form pan (10 inches versus the 9 inches called for) made a difference, but my cake was cooked in the allotted time.
This was super easy to make and we really enjoyed it both as a breakfast treat and as dessert (Mr. ELEB had it with whipped cream, of course!).
