Chocolate, Cardamom and Marmalade Loaf

Lovely CT bought me two books for Christmas, one was The Dessert Deli by Laura Amos, a book full of luscious and decedent desserts and the other was the acclaimed Scandilicious Baking by Signe Johansen, cook and fellow food blogger. I was particularly thrilled by the latter as I've heard much about Scandinavian baking, but actually know very little about it.

With the theme for Tea Time Treats being zesty citrus this month and the theme for One Ingredient being oranges, I was keen to make some sort of marmalade cake. I had a look on Eat Your Books and came up with a number of delicious and suitable recipes, but before going ahead, I thought I'd just check my new acquisition (not yet added to EYB). I have to say, I wasn't very hopeful as marmalade is not something I associate with Scandinavia, but I was wrong. Signe had a recipe for a chocolate and orange marmalade loaf cake. That was the one for me, or at least the one I was going to adapt. As well as a jar of marmalade that needed using up, I also had half a small jar of the lemon marmalade I made just before Christmas - I fancied a St Clements Marmalade Cake. I'd also got it into my head that cardamom would pair very nicely with marmalade. Actually, I knew it did, due to the success of the nonnettes I made this time last year. So I omitted both the coffee and vanilla stated and added some ground cardamom instead.

This is how I did it:

• Spooned 100 ml Seville orange marmalade and 100 ml lemon marmalade into a small bowl.
• Juiced one large orange and stirred this into the marmalade.
• Melted 100g salted butter and 200g runny honey in a pan over gentle heat, then left to cool slightly.
• Sifted 200g flour (100g wholemeal, 80g white, 20g buckwheat) into a large bowl with 2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp rock salt.
• Sifted in 50g ground almonds and 50g cocoa powder.
• Ground the seeds from 2 cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar and added this to the mix.
• Made a well in the centre and poured in the butter and started to mix.
• Added 2 medium eggs, mixing them in one by one, working outwards from the middle.
• Added 2 tbsp yogurt and continued to mix.
• Added half of the marmalade mixture and stirred until all incorporated.
• Finally, stirred in 100 ml of warm water.
• Poured the mixture into a 2 lb loaf mould and baked at 180C for 40 minutes.
• Whilst still hot, pricked the cake all over with a skewer and poured the remaining marmalade mixture over the top.
• Left to cool, then turned out onto a plate to serve.

This was my first introduction to Scandinavian baking and it won't be my last; we both really enjoyed this cake. My photographs have by no means done it justice and I was a little disappointed with the holes, but it was moist with a sticky top or as CT described it (not very diplomatically I thought) "reassuringly pudding like". Pudding like it may be, but its restrained sweetness means it probably won't be as popular with the children. The cardamom flavour did as I hoped and complemented the citrussy tang and bitterness of the marmalade. It gained the seal of approval from my mother, who is a little hard to please when it comes to cakes.

As stated above, I am entering this into One Ingredient with Laura of How to Cook Good Food and Nazima of Franglais Kitchen.

This is my zingy start to the New Year and my entry to Tea Time Treats with Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked.

As I used up two half jars of marmalade, I am sneaking this into the new Credit Crunch Munch event started by Camilla of Fab Food for All and Helen of Fuss Free Flavours.