What do you think of the aroma of cardamom in desserts? I never knew thought about it as a possibility before visiting India, and it changed my life! During my travel I tastes many dessert with a combination of milk, cardamom, saffron and pistachio together, heaven! If you want to try one of those check my Indian rice pudding recipe.

I made some other research and actually found other dessert recipes with cardamon, even traditional cakes, and I decided to experiment. Not only cardamom makes the taste delicious, it also turns the dessert into a warm and exciting experience. It’s food aromatherapy!

This cardamom coffee cake is a healthier version of the original, because I choose to replace the refined sugar with honey / stevia and use a cashew cream instead of butter and sugar. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

I prepared it for my birthday and shared with my colleagues, I think the result was amazing to please both dessert lovers and healthy food fanatics.

Ingredients:

• 270 gr gluten-free flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 tsp stevia or 170 gr honey

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 6 gr teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 2 large eggs

• 200 ml coconut milk

• 100 gr coconut oil

• 150 ml strong coffee (ideally mocha) at room temperature

• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped (optional)

Filling/frosting:

• 200 gr unsalted, raw cashews

• 125 ml almond milk 

• 2 tbsp honey

• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped (optional) 

• 1 tsp grounded coffee

• Pinch of cardamon

1. The first thing to do is to prepare the frosting at least 4 hours before the cake is baked. Soak in the cashews in water for at least 4 hours (overnight is also great). Drain and wash the cashews and place them in a blender with the almond milk, honey, coffee, cardamom and vanilla (optional). Blend until smooth and more milk if needed.

2. Preheat oven to 180 °C (170 degrees if you decided to use honey). Grease a round cake tin and line the bottoms with baking paper.

3. Take 2 a large bowls, whisk together all the dry ingredients in one and in the other beat all the wet ingredients with an electric mixer for 5 minutes. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. 

4. Pour the mix into the cake tin and bake for 35 minutes. Check with a toothpick if the center comes out clean. 

5. Let cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer the cake into a cooling rack. After the cake has cooled down (30 min to 1 hour later) cut in 2 disks with the help of a cake wire slicer.

6. Once the disks and the filling are ready, get ready for the final combination! Place one disk on a cake board, spread a thick layer of cashew filling, then place the other disk on top of that. Cover the top with another layer of cashews frosting. If you prefer you can also use a spatula to spread the cream on the sides as well. 

TIPS: Top the cake as you prefer, with cardamom pods, edible flowers, coffee beans etc.

More recipes every weekend at @glutenfreeweekend