Back from a few days in Finland – a very rainy trip but one seasoned with long woodland walks, deep bowls of pumpkin soup, fried porcini, much salmon and the ever popular pike-perch. The woodland floors were deep with golden birch leaves and moss-encrusted stones. There was an array of velvet-gilled mushrooms, too, a harvest I would have picked had I trusted myself to identify them correctly. The persistent rain was forgotten as I tucked into dinners of fried salmon with pickled red onions, rainbow trout with leeks and roasted apples, and a warm parsnip cake with caramel sauce.
Damp, lost and more than a little wet after an afternoon walk, I spotted the lights of a wood-panelled café. Inside there was good coffee and sweet buns: knots, curls and cobbles of dough sprinkled with ground cardamom, cinnamon and toasted crumbs. The best was a shallow cake filled with custard and slices of tiny, claret-red apples. I am fond of apple cake at the best of times, but this one, warm and sparkling with spiced sugar, was the very essence of the place and time of year. I vowed to make a cardamom-scented apple cake as soon as I arrived home.
It had been a rainy week at home, too, and I got back to a garden covered with soggy leaves. The only herbs left were rosemary and thyme, and the last of the green tomatoes had collapsed on to the kitchen roof. At least it saved me from the rigours of making jars of green tomato chutney, and having to pretend that that’s actually a good thing.
Apples have been the stars of my shopping this week, and the choice in my local shops has been extraordinary. This must have been the best crop for years, and I picked up bags of Ruby, Spartan, Red Windsor and Falstaff with which to satisfy my craving for a fruit-filled, sugar-dusted, spiced cake.
The choice of apples in the shops is extraordinary. This has been the best crop for years
Sweet spiciness also found its way into my weekday suppers this week. I often cook an aubergine dish at this time of year, the skin peeled and the thick slices cooked with olive oil, garlic and rosemary in a pan on the hob. This time I used ground cardamom, cinnamon and turmeric to give a deep, aromatic warmth that felt more appropriate to the weather, and finished it with a spoonful of honey. We ate it with brown rice, steamed, with a few cloves and half a cinnamon stick hidden in its midst.
Christmas is looming. My love for the season and its cooking is no secret, and my enthusiasm increases rather than diminishes with age. I’m already looking longingly at my Christmas cooking list and thinking: “What will it be this year, twists or classics?” Until then, there’s cake.
APPLE AND CARDAMOM CAKE
Serves 8. Ready in 90 minutes.
Cardamom, once ground, is the most ephemeral of spices. You can buy it ready-ground, but it is much better to buy the pods, crack them open and grind the little seeds within to a fine powder yourself. There is magic there.
apples 500g
butter 30g
apple juice 250ml
For the cake:
butter 150g
light muscovado sugar 75g
golden caster sugar 75
green cardamom pods 8
blanched hazelnuts 100g
eggs 4
self-raising wholemeal flour 175g
baking powder 1 tsp
ground cinnamon ½ tsp
salt a pinch
To finish:
green cardamom pods 10
caster sugar 2 tbsp
Heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Line the base of a 22cm spring-form baking tin with baking parchment.
Peel, core and roughly chop the apples. Melt the butter in a shallow pan and add the apples. Pour in the apple juice and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the apples are translucent and tender to the point of a knife. The apple juice will have virtually disappeared. Watch the fruit carefully towards the end of cooking, making sure it doesn’t burn. Remove from the heat.
Make the cake: dice the butter and put it into the bowl of a food mixer, together with the sugars, and beat until light and fluffy – this will take a good 5 minutes. Regularly push the mixture down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Crack open the cardamoms and grind to a fine powder with a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder.
While the butter and sugar are creaming together, toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan, watching carefully and moving them around so they colour evenly. Grind to a fine powder in a food processor.
Beat the eggs lightly with a fork, then add them slowly, with the paddle turning, to the butter and sugar. Combine the flour, ground hazelnuts, ground cardamom, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, then add to the batter, mixing it together thoroughly. Stir the apples into the batter. Scrape the batter into the lined tin and smooth the surface.
Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a metal skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out without any uncooked cake mixture attached.
While the cake is baking, make the cardamom sugar: crack open the cardamom pods, then grind the black seeds to a coarse powder. Mix with the sugar. Remove the cake from the oven, scatter it with the cardamom sugar and let it rest for 20 minutes.
Run a palette knife around the edge of the cake to release it, then remove it from the tin.