oranges and cardamom.

Orange and cardamom, this is a flavor combo that will never get old for me.  It's distinct but not overwhelming, no "kick in the face" as my husband would say. But the flavors aren't hiding from you in subtly either, it's hard to describe (obviously), you'll have to try it for yourself and see.

Cardamom is a spice I don't remember being introduced to before I had my husband's family's traditional Swedish bread at my first Christmas holiday spent with them, and I immediately fell in love with the flavor.

I never had it anywhere else until my sister's wedding.  One of her cake tiers was orange cardamom with cardamom frosting. But as I searched for a recipe to make, like with the curry cake with basil buttercream from the same wedding cake,  I couldn't find anything like it on the web so I set out to make my own recipe. And as a sucker for the decorating portion of baking, (I'll blame it on the artist in me) I immediately knew I wanted to top it with something as texturally pleasing as candied orange zest, I was thrilled by the way it added to the flavors too and not just the overall appearance.

NOTE: You'll need to be prepared and make the candied orange a least a day ahead of time.

CANDIED ORANGE ZEST (will save up to 3 weeks stored in fridge in syrup):

3 oranges
1 cup sugar

1. Use a citrus zester or vegetable peeler to peel the oranges.
2. Place zest in a medium saucepan. Cover with cold water, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Drain; repeat two more times with fresh water.
3. Place sugar in a clean saucepan with 1 1/2 cups water; stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring consistently, until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Add the orange zest to the boiling syrup; reduce heat, and simmer until translucent, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat; let zest cool in syrup, at least 1 hour. Remove from syrup when ready to use. (Store in the syrup)
4. Place zest on parchment paper and spread out well, don't leave it in clumps, with as little of the syrup as possible. (I ended up using a paper towel to soak up excess syrup ) I started drying mine about mid-day the day before I needed it and it was perfect, not dried out and crunchy but not dripping wet either. This batch makes PLENTY so do a test run if you want to be safe. 

-I worked from these directions for the zest.


ORANGE CARDAMOM CUPCAKES (or cake)**:

1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (may substitute more butter here if desired)
3 cups granulated sugar
5 eggs, room temperature
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (kosher if you've got it)
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
3 tsp orange extract
zest from one large orange
3 tsp ground cardamom (If you have the full seeds, make sure you take them out of the shells before crushing them, I use our mortar and pestle to crush them finely)

-I use my adapted vanilla cake recipe inspired by this one as my vanilla cake base and took off from there.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 400. (my oven tends to run about 10 degrees cool so, set your temperatures and/or bake time accordingly) Line cupcake tin with cupcake liners.

2. Cream butter and shortening until very light and fluffy in your electric mixer, add sugar one cup at a time until fully mixed before adding the next cup.  Add eggs one by one until fully mixed before adding another egg.

3. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and ground cardamom. Pour milks and vanilla into a mixing cup and whisk with a fork. Add both to the butter/shortening mix a bit at a time, starting and ending with the dry mixture.

4. Gently stir in mixer until well combined, and make sure to scrap down sides of mixer and mix thoroughly. 

5. Add zest from orange and orange extract and mix thoroughly.

7. Evenly distribute batter (I used about 2 Tbsp per cupcake to get them about 2/3 full). These baked for 13 mins at 400 in my oven, be sure to check a couple minutes out to ensure you don't over bake, a toothpick should come out of the center clean.

8. Immediately move cupcakes from cupcake tray to cooling racks. Let fully cool (and I would also chill a bit) before frosting.

Yield: 36 cupcakes

I freeze mine until I'm ready to frost and serve. When they are completely cooled and chilled I wrap each individually in saran wrap and place in gallon-size freezer bags. I pull them out just in time to add the frosting and then refrigerate again. Be sure to pull them out of the fridge at least an hour before serving.

** To make as a cake you can make 4 8-inch rounds or 3 9-inch rounds. I always butter and flour my pans with a parchment round in the bottom of each pan.
Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. 
(Tip:I always set an early timer for my first time with a recipe, to make sure I don't accidentally over bake.)

Let stand for about 5 minutes in cake pans before removing and letting cool completely on cooling racks.
(I saran wrap and freeze my cakes before frosting as well, and I like to make them ahead of time so I don't have to do everything in one day.)

CARDAMOM BUTTERCREAM FROSTING:

1 cup salted butter, room temperature
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 1/2 tsp ground cardamom (try 2 tsp first to make sure it's not too strong for you)
5-6 cups powdered sugar (this is all about consistency, if frosting is too weak, or soft it won't pipe well, so add powdered sugar until it'll hold it's form enough to pipe)
1/4 cup milk or water  (I used milk since I'm always careful to only have my cakes and cupcakes out with time to thaw and serve, I never leave them out for long periods of time, just to be safe)

DIRECTIONS: 

1. Cream butter until fluffy and pale.  

2. Add vanilla and cardamom and mix thoroughly. 

3. Add the powdered sugar and the milk (or water) alternating between the two until you reach the right consistency. 

4. Pipe onto chilled cupcakes as desired.

5. Top cupcakes and frosting with candied orange zest.

I refrigerate my cupcakes if I'm not serving them soon, I don't like the frosting to get crazy soft or warm as a personal preference.

Hope you enjoy as much as I do!