Cardamom Coffee Cake with Cyrstallized Ginger

As a child I used to wonder so much as to why these adults keep having so much coffee and tea through the day. Now I know that's because there is nothing much to look forward to on a normal day at work! :( There are some days when as soon as I get up in the morning, I think today I will make myself a nice cup of tea/coffee at work and have, and very much look forward to that part of the day! Yes, Really! Do you guys do that too?

And then, there is that best part of starting the week ends, Saturday mornings, when it is very quiet and you feel like you have all the time in the world, when you can sit and enjoy that steaming hot cup of tea!

How nice would  it be to have that steaming hot cup of coffee with a nice moist cake? I keep looking for nice coffee cake recipes, sponge, crumb etc., So far I have liked my Orange cake the best, and I found this Mollie ketzen's cardamom coffee cake recipe. As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to try it, I did this week end, although I altered the recipe a little bit according to my taste buds and the cake turned out really moist and tasty. And as the original recipe says, it did taste much much better after it was completely cooled down.

Here is my recipe for you guys to try:

1/2 lbs unsalted butter, softened.

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups standard white flour

2 tst baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tbsp cardamom powder

1 cup full fat yogurt

2 tbsp vegetable oil

And to make a nut mixture, you will need:

less than 1/4 cup brown sugar

few finely chopped walnuts

little less than 1/4 cup finely chopped sweetened crystallized ginger.

1/2 tbsp cinnamon powder

I used Masti crystallized ginger for this, as is it tasted yum! :) The addition of ginger gave a very nice flavor to the cake, along with the heavenly cinnamon, cardamom combination, Yes, HEAVENLY!

Preheat oven to 350 degree fh. Grease an 8 inch loaf pan (This is what I used and it gave me a HUGE cake!) In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar well and add eggs, beating well after the addition of each egg. I loved the color of the mixture at this stage, a nice blush color and I couldn't help myself from clicking a picture. 

Mix the vanilla essence to it, Then in a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom powder.

Add the flour mixture to the egg butter mixture, part by part, alternation with sour cream and mixing well after each addition. Mix well.

Mix the brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon and walnuts for the nut mixture in a separate bowl.

Now transfer approximately 1/3 of the batter to the greased loaf pan and cover it with half of the nut mixture, Add another 1/3 of the batter to it and cover again with the rest of the nut mixture, Cover with the rest of the batter, smooth it and bake for 60-65 mins or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Now this is a little bit longer than some other cakes, so I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, but it was alright.

It tasted the best next day with a cup of my favorite apple lemon tea!

So which cake do you like to have best with coffee? Please share.

Sending this recipe to Bake Fest event hosted by Sumee and Vardhini.

Cheers.