Cardamom Cake
For years I was fascinated by Swedish pastries containing cardamom. When a year-abroad student joined my seminar one year, I finally gave the recipe below a try. While this passed muster as very like the real stuff, it’s quite sweet and not part of my regular rotation.
Credits
This recipe is adapted from the Grandma Nett’s Swedish Coffee Bread recipe on, I think, food dot com.1
Ingredients
- Leavening
- 2 tsp yeast
- 1¼ cup milk
- Liquid Ingredients
- 1 tsp cardamom seeds
- 4 eggs
- ½ tsp salt
- Sweetening
- 1¼ cup sugar
- ¼ lb butter
- Dry Ingredients
- 6–8 cups flour
Steps
Prepare Leavening
Warm the milk to 40°C and stir in yeast. Set aside.
Prepare Liquid Ingredients
Grind cardamom seeds. Lightly beat eggs and stir in cardamom powder and salt. Set aside.
Prepare Sweetening
Melt butter, allow to cool, then combine with sugar.
Combine Liquid Ingredients and Sweetening
Fold the sweetening mixture into the liquid ingredients.
Add Leavening
Gradually stir the yeast mixture into the liquid ingredients.
Mix, Knead, and Rise
Set flour in a bowl and gradually fold in liquid mixture. Knead into a smooth dough, place in an oiled bowl and let rise in a warm (30°C to 40°C) place until doubled.
Shape, Rise, and Bake
Dough can be woven into a braid or shaped into small loaf tins. Allow to rise about that much (30 minutes to an hour?) and bake at 180°C for 25–30 minutes.
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I might have cribbed this from another location, actually. I remember that the recipe I worked from applied a name to it that I recited to the student who “taste tested” the result, and she told me that the name was anachronistic, something she’d heard only from elderly people. Which fits the narrative—but the linked recipe doesn’t give a name for it. Some past events are shrouded in mystery. ↩︎