Armenian nutmeg cake

Hello Friends!

I’m so excited to share my very first recipe with you. It was my Grandparents wedding anniversary yesterday so we had a little family gathering, and this cake was the perfect end to the meal. It tasted like Christmas had come early. And looked like Christmas had come early, thanks to the “fresh snowfall of icing sugar” (- to quote Nigella Lawson- inspirational Domestic Goddess and my secret BFF.) Speaking of Christmas…did you know there are only 77 days until Christmas! Holy moly that’s close! I’m so excited for the crackers, mince pies, tinsel, snow(i wish.) But at least I can finally play my Michael Buble CD again. Anyway, back to CAKE.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed (because it’s fun seeing how much you can squeeze in)
• 2 cups flour, sifted (if you are extremely diligent)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt (yes this is an actual measure, i kid you not!)
• 1/2 cup cold butter, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (give it a lil swirl with a fork)
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg (the best spice)
• 1/2 cup walnuts (or pecans if you are posh), chopped
• sprinkle of cinnamon

Firstly, you are going to want to preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (350 F.)

Next you need to grease a 9 inch tin.

Then combine your flour, baking powder and salt.. here comes the fun part…rub in the butter until your mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 

Looks a little shabby…but wait…

That’s more like it!

Next you can add your sugar and mix that in too.

Press half of the mixture into your tin and reserve the other half.

Dissolve your baking soda in the milk (so you don’t get any nasty sour lumps…bleugh!), add beaten egg, and nutmeg, add this to your reserved cake mixture.

Give that a nice stir.

Pour this beautiful mixture over your base,

Then sprinkle with some nuts and cinnamon.

Pop this is the oven and bake for about 60 minutes. In the meantime you can do a load of washing, watch the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy or take your dog for a walk. NOTE: please do check on your cake as it may be done sooner or later than this.

Let it cool in the tin for roughly 10 minutes, then flip delicately onto a cooling rack.

Dust with icing sugar for maximum prettiness.

HINTS:

1. Make sure your oven rack is positioned correctly so your cake is in the centre of the oven.

2. Only open the oven door after it has been baking for half the required cooking time.

3. To test if it is done, poke a skewer through…if it comes out clean…it’s done!

4. If you use a doily as decoration make sure you separate them so you only use one, not half the pack.

Told you Christmas had come early!

Now go make some cake…