During a Corona-cleanup in my kitchen I found a jar of cardamom seeds. They belonged to a bottle of gin that got empty sooner than the jar of seeds. I didn't like to throw them away. So I decided to use them in cardamom cupcakes.
Cardamom cupcakes
Ingredients
- 300 gram whole wheat flour
- 300 gram brown sugar
- 250 gram butter
- 10 gram baking powder
- 150 ml cream
- 2 eggs
- 1,5 teaspoon cardamom
- rum essence optional, you can also use vanilla
Instructions
- Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, cardamom). Then add cream, butter, eggs and rum essence. Mix everything well, manually or with the kitchen robot.
- Grease a mold for cupcakes with some butter.
- Divide the dough over the cupcake molds. (app. ¾ because they will rise)
- Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 180°C. Check with a fork or toothpick whether they are ready. Baking time of course also depends on the size of your molds. Mine were quite large. If you use small ones baking time might be shorter.
Notes
About cardamom
Green cardamom grows in the South of India in the state of Kerala. It is a shrub that can grow up to 4 meters tall and belongs to the same family as ginger. The spices are the dried seed boxes of the plant.
It is not the cheapest spice in the world, and is therefore also called the "Queen of spices". It ranks after saffron and vanilla in the price range.
There is also a black version of cardamom. This is a bit bigger and has its origins in the North-East of India, Sikkim. The greens are said to have a more subtle taste.
I find it quite difficult to describe the taste of cardamom. It certainly is not spicy. It has a mild, warm and slightly bitter taste with a sense of sweet. For that reason it is often used to spice Christmas cookies and "Glühwein".
If you want to study cardamom more in detail, you can check wikipedia, or thespruceeats, which also has a very extensive section about cardamom.
Are you looking for more recipes with cardamom? On surprising.recipes you will find some other Indian pleasures with cardamom. Be sure to try mango lassi spiced up with cardamom and saffron on a hot summer afternoon! The gravy of Malai Kofta will be so much tastier if you spice it up with some cardamom.
If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.
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