Not a TWD: I made a cake, though

This week's recipe was for something called Mrs. Vogel's Scherben. It is essentially fried dough with powdered sugar on top. I am not opposed to frying. I own a deep fryer. I like dough and I like sugar. However, this one didn't appeal to me. I did go to Teanna's blog, Spork or Foon, and saw a lovely photo that made me think I want to try these another day.

I did make a delicious cake, though. I have fairly recently discovered cardamom. It has a sort of herbal, woodsy taste. It's used a lot in Scandinavian baking and Indian cooking. (Thank you Wikipedia!) We had friends over this summer and I made a wonderful cardamom ice cream. I had plenty left over, so when I was trolling blogs, and I found this recipe, I knew I wanted to make it.

The cake was very easy to put together. It has two parts: cake and swirl. I used a whole vanilla bean instead of a half and yogurt in place of the sour cream for the cake. Each component had orange zest and cardamom in it. The swirl ingredients were unchanged. My kitchen smelled amazing while it was baking. I let it "ripen" overnight. (I'm discovering that this is a good trick for most of the cakes I've made lately)

This is an excellent cake.

My swirl didn't end up very swirl-like. It sort of clumped. Truth be told, the cake would be fabulous without it. It's a rich cake with hints of cardamom, citrus, and vanilla. The swirl is a little more crunchy with a very concentrated cardamom taste. The cake is very moist.

I would absolutely make this cake again. I might either play with the swirl or take it out completely.