AND BAM WE'RE BACK

So, I don't like the idea of an "upside down" cake. If you're making the cake, whatever side is showing is the right side, kay. So despite Nigella's lovely intentions she named the recipe I made cranberry upside down cake. But that's wrong. So I'm calling what I made cranberry cardamom bomb cake, for obvious reasons. I also mixed it up with the batter recipe, used a little less sugar, subbed half the butter for apple sauce, dialed down the milk to accommodate for the more liquidy apple sauce and added a good douse of cardamom. omomomomom
-Amanda

Brown Sugar Cardamom Friends

Nothing makes you feel a rumble in your tummy quite like the sight of a forest creature.



The recipe was quite simple. All you need is butter, flour, brown sugar, and cardamom. What could be simpler?

I would definitely add more cardamom.

I also topped the cookies with turbinado instead of more brown sugar. Shiny!


Farewell, Mr. Moose!

Recipe: here
Forest creatures: Hiding in the forest, and in ikea cookie cutters.

-Anna

Edit: I forgot my favorite photo!


Me and the cookie, drinkin that earl grey.

I Thought I Didn't Take Pictures, But I Did

These are Nigella's blueberry muffins. They're from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I'm too lazy to write the recipe, but basically they're her blueberry muffins except I added grated orange and ground cardamom.

There's melted butter too.


And there we go. Heehee.

I'm clever.

-Amanda

Because I like my cookies salty.

So Anna and I really like cardamom and cookies, and together--they're all pretty incredible. And I then I was inspired by Anna's brittle and I had to make snacks for my class last Thursday and snacks for a inspire-people-to-live-in-the-house-that-I-live-in-now-but-next-year fair, so chocolate chip cookies in bar form seemed ideal. And then cardamom is also really fun, these could also be really great with ginger. I want to make gingered pear challah soon, mmmm. My version is adapted from this recipe, but a bit spiced up. (note bad pun) Anyway have fun with them, and they would go well with this song, nice and rich. Yeah I did just do that.

Cardamom-y Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars with Salt!
2 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp (and then some) kosher sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1 TBS molasses (alternatively you could just use 3/4 c. white sugar and 3/4 c. brown sugar, but our kitchen's giant open bag of brown sugar could have broken bones)
3 medium eggs (or 2 large eggs)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 sticks softened Earth Balance (margarine/butter etc.)
20 oz. chocolate chips/chunks whatever (these are veryvery chocolately!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure butter/margarine is softened!
2. Whisk flour, salt, baking soda, and cardamom together in a bowl.
3. With a mixer, cream the sugars, molasses if using, and butter together. This might take a while, 3 or 4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
4. Carefully stir in dry ingredients (not too much!) and mix in chocolate chips.
5. Spray a 9 by 13 inch glass baking pan with cooking spray and pour the batter in and distribute evenly.
6. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.
And these keep well if you put them in tupperware at least!

-Amanda

A Glass o' Lassi on a Rainy Day

There will also be cookies in this post. Stay tuned.

As a little girl, I thought my sister (13 years older than me) was the coolest thing ever. She always took my family to the most exotic restaurants. Well, at least I thought they were, because I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard of Indian food yet. So we order some grub, finding ourselves questioning just how much we desired to taste some of the foods we'd ordered. Sometimes a long, bright pink sausage isn't the most tempting meal. But we went ahead and ate everything, unaccustomed to there being spice in food. And by spice I mean the hot kind. My sister was the only smart one, ordering a big glass of chilled mango lassi to calm her fiery taste buds. At the time, I blegh'd. I'm not sure why, because I liked yogurt, and i liked mango. Fortunately for you all, tastes change. So here you have it: mango lassi.


(based on this recipe)



What you need:

some means of blending (I used a cuisinart hand blender)
1 large ripe mango (yielding a cup of diced mango pulp)
1 c nonfat yogurt
1/4 tsp cardamom
4 or 5 ice cubes



Blend all of these things. Strain. Transfer to a glass. Drink.

I did not strain, and this was not a problem. I don't think it would have made much of a difference at all. Not a single mango hair found in my teeth!

You can add a few tablespoons of sugar before blending, but this was sweet enough for me.

I would also add a little less cardamom, because the flavor was a bit overwhelming. My roommate thought it tasted carroty. At some point I'll be adding some cinnamon to this.

I only read the wikipedia page on lassi after making this, but now I know to sprinkle some pistachio pieces on top of my lassi. And to get some Bhang Lassi next time I'm in India.



||
V



Cardamom Cookies

Making these cookies was a disaster. I'm no good at making cookies. But I found some nice ducks in the rubble.

What you need:

1/2c unsalted butter
1c sugar
1tsp ground cardamom
2 eggs
1 c all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt


Preheat an oven to 325F.

Beat the butter, sugar, and cardamom together. Add eggs to this, one at a time. When well-combined, add the flour and salt and lightly mix with a spoon. Next, you can try dropping the dough onto a greased cookie sheet with a spoon, 1/2in apart. If you are like me, your cookies will form one unified cookie sheet. You will then watch this sheet til it is firm, remove it, and use a duck-shaped cookie cutter to shape the cookies, put them back in the oven til crispy and golden brown, and save the non-duck cookie bits for your mom.

I tried adding some more flour to remaining dough, but I needed to have flattened out the ploomped dough on the sheet. Edges too crispy. Tasted great though ! People really liked my ducks. I really liked my ducks


(based on this recipe, halved)

OH I almost forgot to mention something. Amanda and I made cardamom cookies at the exact same time. Without having planned this, or even bringing up cardamom cookies. That is how important these cookies are to the world.

Halvah is a Homonym

My dad really enjoys halvah--the kind with sesame and honey and such. He got these little halvah confections flavored with vanilla that I are delicious, so much so that the company decided to call themselves Delicious Halva, but of course. So I got it in my head that making halvah from scratch would be quite the project and started looking up recipes.
So as the title suggests, there are two types of halva, the more common sesame kind, and the other type made from semolina flour (the same flour used to make pasta). I buy a fairly expensive bag of semolina thinking "semolina, sesame, they must be related." And I bring the bag of pricey flour home, and I take it out, and glance over the ingredients...nope, no sesame listed. Semolina is actually made of from the hard grains left over after milling flour.
But I was actually able to find a rather enticing cookie recipe here, that used a hefty amount of the semolina. The recipe called for putting an almond on top, which I did, but in my opinion was a rather silly addition. If you were to replace the vanilla extract with almond it might work, but otherwise I would leave the cookies naked except for the quick egg gloss on top to shine them up.
I thought the flavor would be a bit flat with just the vanilla and semolina, so i decided to add a sprinkling of cardamom. I didn't put very much, so initially I was worried that the flavor wouldn't come out at all. Luckily it turned out to be the perfect amount, the cardamom flavor was there, but very subtle, so you had to wonder for a minute what the note actually was. These also might be nice with a teaspoon of ginger to replace the cardamom.

Cardamom Vanilla Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter
1 c. flour
1 c. sugar
2 c. semolina flour
1 tsp. ground cardamom
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
A bit of egg for glossing them

1. Melt the butter slowly, i.e. don't let it get any brown speckles in it. After you've melted it use a spoon to remove as much as you can of the white froth that gathers at the top.
2. Combine the flours, sugar, and cardamom in a bowl.
3. Once the butter is cool, stir in the eggs and vanilla, make sure to break the yolks up. Add the flour mixture and stir well. With your hands rub and knead or whatever measure you want to use--just make sure that the dry flour parts and the yolky liquid parts meld together to form a cohesive dough. Let this sit for an hour or so covered with a towel or plastic wrap.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Play with the dough again to make sure it's the same consistency all over. Take out baking pans and put parchment paper on them. Make littles ball with of the dough. Midway between a tablespoon and a teaspoon in size. Put them about an inch apart on the baking sheets. Brush with the egg wash and stick in the oven for about 20 minutes.