Cardamom Crumb Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Jill of Jill’s Blog. She chose the Cardamom Crumb Cake, which is a small little coffee cake flavored with cardamom, coffee, and orange zest. You can get the complete recipe from Jill’s blog and also check out how the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers did this week.

I haven’t baked very much with cardamom, just one cake that I can recall. I use cardamom pods for a rice pilaf that I make, but that’s quite a bit different. As I recall, I didn’t like the cake I had made with cardamom, but I couldn’t exactly remember why. My cardamom was pretty old so I decided to buy some new stock for this recipe. When I bought the cardamom, I thought that it smelled really strong but figured out it would be ok in the crumb cake. I made the cake and it looked beautiful. I did have to bake it a little longer but otherwise it turned out just fine.

After having this cake, I’ve decided that I don’t like cardamom. It’s too floral for my tastes. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since I don’t like Earl Grey Tea and similarly floral things. For me, despite the fact that this cake was beautifully light, nice and moist and had a great crumb topping, all I could taste was the floral cardamom. I think I would really like this cake with nutmeg, or just cinnamon, since I really liked the cake otherwise. I’m glad I did try this, but I doubt that I will be making anything with cardamom anytime soon.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 38