THOUGHTS OF NUTMEG TRAPPED IN A POUND CAKE…& FOODBUZZ
NUTMEG POUND CAKE…spicing it up
Freshly grated…
I’ve used nutmeg in a lot of curries but it never has an overpowering nutmeggy taste, if you know what I mean. Had already posted it in a rice pudding / Indian kheer, which it lent a beautiful flavour to. Turned to the ever reliable Internet & it did throw up some interesting choices…eggnog nutmeg cake, vanilla nutmeg cake, Armenian nutmeg cake ( made it eons ago;nice nutty cake-recipe here). I had on hand a cup of sugar & 3/4 cup butter, which I had already creamed for cookies, & then had suffered a drastic change of mind! The Internet being the ever dependable resource, came to my rescue. Ooooh, what did we have here? A NUTMEG POUND CAKE from Ace Recipes. Absolutely brilliant because it matched my creamed proportions of butter & sugar perfectly!!
Thinking cap on…I was thinking ‘NUTMEG CAKE’
NUTMEG POUND CAKEThis spicy pound cake has a mocha center that just naturally occurs when you pour the cocoa portion of the cake mixture over the light batter. For a more attractive presentation, use a fancy tube-type pan with an 8 to 10 cup capacity.
The recipe as adapted from Ace Recipes
Ingredients:
Dark cocoa – 3 tbsp
Instant coffee powder – 1 tsp
Baking soda – 1/8 tsp
Hot water – 3 tbsp (or just enough to make a thick paste; add a tsp at a time)
Butter – 3/4 cup ; at room temperature (or margarine)
Castor sugar – 1 cup (granular should be fine too; I used powdered coz my batter was originally meant for sugar cookies)
Eggs – 3
All-purpose flour – 2 cups
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Salt – 1/4 tsp
Ground nutmeg – 1 1/2 tsp ( I grated about 3/4th of a fresh nutmeg; the aroma was divine)
Cinnamon powder – 1 tsp
Milk – 1/2 cup; at room temperature
Method:
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In small bowl mix cocoa, coffee powder, baking soda and hot water to make a thick paste. Set side.
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In large mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar until smooth.
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Beat in eggs until fluffy.
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TIP: Butter and eggs must be at room temperature or creamed mixture will not turn out light and fluffy. If mixture is cold and curdled in appearance, place bowl over warm water for a few minutes, then proceed beating until fluffy.
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Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg cinnamon.
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Add to creamed mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour. Beat until smooth.
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Take 1/4 of the batter in a bowl & stir reserved cocoa mixture. Keep aside.
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Pour 1/2 of the remaining white batter into a wellbuttered, tube-type pan of 8 to 10 cups capacity. Smooth it out.
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Pour the cocoa-coffee batter over this; smooth it out (can even marble or swirl at this point if desired).
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Cover this with remaining white batter, smooth out & bake at 180 degrees C for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
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Leave in pan for 10-15 minutes turn out gently & leave on rack. The cake has a beautiful crumb, & is wonderful warm.
Extremely light & moist, the mocha heart gives the cake a whole new dimension!
Before I end this post, I have one more thing to add…BIG THANKS to Foodbuzz for the wonderful eco-tote & mini moo cards they mailed me. The cards came to me ages ago, & I received the bag a couple of days ago, with a personalised badge included. Take a look. Thank you…I am very touched & love the bag! 
What the buzz about…Foodbuzz is the first-ever community site devoted exclusively to food and dining content—an unparalleled resource for searching, surfing and sharing with fellow foodies everywhere. From the professional chef to the casual diner and everyone in between, the online community is a one-stop shop for food lovers…do check it out!
This post featured on
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KCTV5.com Kansas City
Deeba @ PAB
About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.
22 Comments
Sophie
I would love to be buried with my spice cake, because then I’d smell lovely forever :D. I am very certain this cake gave off a yummy aroma while it baked. i love that you added coffee to it, too! 🙂
Asha
Good one Deeba, love the two colored cake. I always spray butter flavored no-stick in the pans, never fails me. They do stick even though pans are non-stick,learnt the hard way too!:D
I just posted a Nutmeggy dessert too. I will be on blog break until Sept, see you in the Fall, hugs!:))
Ivy
Deeba, nutmeg is a spice I rarely use and after reading your post I google searched it to see if I found something I would like to make. I didn’t find anything and gave up when I saw the answer just in front of me on my desk. You will find more about this in a few days. Your cake is awesome.
Ann
Lovely looking spice cake!
Ann at Redacted Recipes
meeso
Nutmeg, I LOVE IT! This is the next recipe of yours I’m trying… And soon!!!
mimi
cracks or no, this cake looks so moist and delish! definitely want to try this one out!
Aparna
That’s a lovely cake, Deeba. So what if you needed to “wrestle” with it a bit in the beginning?
I love the flavour of nutmeg even though I haven’t used it much.
Thanks Deeba, for doing this for Think Nutmeg.
I’ll wait for the details and your e-mail, too.:)
Ben
I didn’t know all that about nutmeg, what an interesting spice. That cake must taste delicious. I can’t wait to try it :-p
Nags
my mom used nutmeg to flavour her fruit cakes for xmas 🙂 thats the only time i have seen her use it. dont have an oven now to try it so admiring yours instead 🙂
arundati
congratulations on the badges!! cant believe you had to wrestle with the cake….i love nutmeg in baked goodies…
Divya
Hey Deeba..your pound cakes(or is that the bundt pan?)always tempts me!!I’ve been trying to find a bundt pan which can be used in MW as well but in vain..even though the MW instruction manual says that I can use steel tins while cooking in convection mode,haven’t tried it yet.When I do,the first thing am going to try is your vanilla pound cake…this one looks too delicious with a choco heart!!yummy!!!
diva
wow. cool stuff from foodbuzz. and man, that cake is IT! 🙂 looks great.
eatme_delicious
Yum that poundcake looks good! Freshly grated nutmeg is good but for me, only in small amounts.
Mike of Mike's Table
That looks like a great poundcake! I love poundcake, but its one of those things that is (usually) the same everywhere you go…yours has a lot of great stuff going on that makes it a lot more interesting again. The dark swirl, the nutmeg…yum!
Rachel
Wow i face that crisis too infact most times..sigh!! Will find a way to tackle it…
Love the shades and those are some lovely gifts…
A&N
You are surely good when it comes to putting your thoughts into action 🙂
Love the cake! And it looks spicy too. Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Coffee…mmmmmm… Just out of curiosity, why do you use both baking soda and baking powder?
and I think I’ve said this before…..it is so not fair of you to post pretty pictures like that. I think your next step should be to enable the readers to reach into the screen and at least smell the cake if not take a bite 🙂
A&N
You are surely good when it comes to putting your thoughts into action 🙂
Love the cake! And it looks spicy too. Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Coffee…mmmmmm… Just out of curiosity, why do you use both baking soda and baking powder?
and I think I’ve said this before…..it is so not fair of you to post pretty pictures like that. I think your next step should be to enable the readers to reach into the screen and at least smell the cake if not take a bite 🙂
Ruth Elkin
I got those wee treats in the post from foodbuzz too and was so excited!!!! Aren’t they great!
Love the look of this pound cake but I’ll have to resist baking this one cos if i bake any more cake i may just turn into a cake!
Aparna
Well, they do say it is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, and I’m certainly glad you did.:)
Accident and all, your cake still looks good to me with chocolate and nutmeg.
Thanks for sending in your cake, Deeba.
Jude
This sounds so good — chocolate and nutmeg is such a great flavor combination.
Elle
I L-O-V-E nutmeg! This looks like a must try. It’s one of my favorite spices. And isn’t Foodbuzz wonderful?
Astha
Hi Deeba,
I stumbled on your blog just by chance and then spent the entire day going through your archives and marvelling at the amazing things you bake..!!
I have just started trying my hands on cooking and would love to try your recipes. I will let you know if they turn out even half of what I see on your blog!!