This is a commissioned post.
A Scandinavian-influenced coffee cake marbled with a deliciously crunchy mixture of pecan nuts, warm spices and dark brown sugar, and kept soft with chestnut puree. This fairly healthy cake is easily gluten-free. Mums deserve homemade.
Even if you are not a scintilla Swedish or drop of Danish, most of us love the warmly spicy and citrussy flavour of cardamom. In fact it is extensively used in sweet and savoury East European, Southeast Asian and Indian subcontinental cooking. So, even if you haven’t knowingly had cardamom, chances are its been at least a haunting note in a curry you have eaten or a bun you have nibbled.
Besides a home-baked cake, mums always appreciate flowers. Sure we are capable of buying them for ourselves, but we love it when someone surprises us with a carefully chosen, quality bouquet. Am I right, mums?
According to this article in eParenting, Mother’s Day is the biggest event in the UK’s cut flower and indoor plant industry. In the days leading up to Mothering Sunday (its official UK name) the UK’s sales of cut flowers and indoor plants increase by an average of 40% on a normal day’s trading. I was lucky enough to receive this fabulous, ultra-fresh bouquet of colourful flowers from online Waitrose Florist. Here’s a snap of me arranging them (apologies to florists everywhere; I’m terrible at flower arranging!)
Arranging my #ThanksMum bouquet from WaitroseFlorist.com
Isn’t it stunning? Do you want one too?
Well…
Waitrose is running a competition to celebrate mums everywhere. Snap how you plan to say #ThanksMum and share your moment @waitrose for a chance to win a beautiful Emma Bridgewater bouquet and hamper available from WaitroseFlorist and WaitroseGifts. You might be planning to bake a cake, share afternoon tea together, cook a Sunday lunch, or even help your children surprise mum with breakfast in bed. Or something completely different! Tag your photo posts with #ThanksMum and @Waitrose on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for a chance to win. {UK only}
Cardamom-Pecan Swirl Coffee Cake
A Scandinavian-influenced coffee cake marbled with a deliciously crunchy mixture of pecan nuts, warm spices and dark brown sugar, and kept soft with chestnut puree. This fairly healthy cake is easily gluten-free. Mums deserve homemade.
150g self-raising wholemeal flour (or use 200g gluten-free flour blend for wholemeal and plain flour)
50g self-raising plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
125g vanilla sugar or golden caster sugar
½ rounded tsp ground cardamom (or cinnamon)
100ml yogurt
100ml milk
100g chestnut puree (Merchant Gourmet brand is widely available in the UK – half the pouch)
1 medium egg, beaten
75ml rapeseed oil
Topping: 15g brown sugar or coconut palm sugar + ¼ tsp ground cardamom + ¼ tsp ground cinnamon (or all cinnamon) + 15g pecans or walnuts, very finely chopped
1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan/180C. Lightly oil a 1 lb loaf tin and line with a long strip of parchment paper so that some hangs over either end.
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl or jug use a hand blender/immersion blender to combine the liquid and soft ingredients. Fold the liquid ingredients into the dry, mixing until the dry ingredients are just absorbed.
3. In a small bowl mix together the topping ingredients.
4. Spoon two-thirds for the cake batter into the lined tin. Sprinkle over half of the topping. Spoon-over the remaining batter. Sprinkle over the remaining topping then use a knife to gently swirl the through the cake.
5. Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes, covering the last 10 minutes if needed to prevent the top getting too brown.
6. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for 15 minutes before carefully lifting the cake by the paper and placing on a wire cooling rack.
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This is a post commissioned by Waitrose. As always, all opinions are my own.