In Spain, there is a good luck tradition, that at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, you eat twelve grapes, one each as the church bells chime. This is actually no small feat, and I’ve managed to nearly choke on a grape or two. This year, I decided to riff slightly on the Doce Uvas de la Suerte tradition, by making this Twelve Grapes Cake so instead of wolfing down the grapes, you can enjoy a piece of cake instead. Happy New Year!
Have you ever heard of purple apricots? No? Me neither until about a week ago when I found some at a local green grocer. I suspect that they are actually a hybrid between apricots and small purple or black plums. They look unique but taste pretty much like apricots. This recipe works just as easily with regular apricots, so don’t let the unique ingredients throw you for a loop. It’s a dessert cake, a coffee cake or a cake for afternoon tea, take your pick. Would also be nice with a bit of custard, ice cream or whipped cream. The almonds and olive oil give it a great, subtle taste addition. When I have made this cake before (once with plums, once with cherries) the fruit stayed more on top, but this time they sunk in a little much. Not as pretty as I would have liked, but still delicious.
acidity and sometimes the bitterness of even the sweetest fruit — not something that you really notice until it is on your plate for first tasting. Nevertheless, happy with the concept of the upside down cake and will likely do something else on the topic soon. If nothing else, it looks very vibrant!
So this is Zebra Cake (Zebrakuchen). I know that you can barely see the zebra stripes in the marbling, but if you look on the bottom piece on the right, you can see the stripes.
Zebrakuchen is definitely one of those “things of my childhood” – I think every kid in Germany since the late 1960s on has had Zebrakuchen — for birthday parties, the ubiquitous cake that people brought “for the kids” to family gatherings and Sunday afternoon cake and coffee. It’s fun and happy and …. and well sometimes it doesn’t really look like zebra stripes and them you can just call in Marble Cake and the funny thing is that you won’t actually know if the stripes are there until you cut into it, so sometimes you have to change you tune halfway through. “I meant to make it a Marble Cake!” The last one that I made was really stripey, this one not so much. It’s an easy cake in that you can make it in a cake pan or a loaf pan, it can be frosted or left plan. I doubled up on the espresso powder in the chocolate batter and it made it ultra-rich. Perfect for a snowy Friday afternoon.
I love cardamom. It is by far, bar none, my favorite spice. Second to that is nutmeg, so if I have the opportunity to combine the two, I am all for it. AND I love bundt pans because you can make really cool looking cakes without frosting — and you all saw evidence of how untalented I am at frosting the other day. I bought myself this bundt pan for my birthday this week and really like the pattern. Just a sprinkling of powdered sugar and this Cardamom Nutmeg Spiced Bundt Cake really pops. Very straight forward recipe and extraordinarily pleased at the outcome.