Anyone looking for a sort of unique cake? Try this. It never fails to
generate conversation.


Cardamom Cake


½ to ¾ cup crumbs made from vanilla wafer cookies

2 tbs butter (to grease pan)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/4 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp powdered cardamom

½ tsp salt

3 eggs, at room temperature

1-1/2 cups heavy cream



Preheat oven to 350 F.



Place 8-10 vanilla wafers between sheets of waxed paper and, using a rolling
pin, grind into moderately coarse crumbs. Butter a 9" kugelhopf mold or
Bundt pan. Pour in cookie crumbs and rotate pan to coat sides. The finer
crumbs will stick, leaving the coarser crumbs in the bottom. Distribute
these evenly - they'll become the topping on the cake. There should be
about ¼" of the coarse crumbs.



In large bowl of electric mixer, combine flour, sugar, baking powder,
cardamom and salt. On low speed, blend in the eggs and heavy cream until
thoroughly combined. Increase speed to medium and mix until the batter has
the consistency of softly whipped cream, approximately 5 minutes. Pour into
prepared pan. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Turn
out onto rack immediately and cool before serving.



If desired, dust lightly with confectioner's sugar just before serving. If
cake is to be stored more than a couple of days, wrap tightly and
refrigerate.



Tips:

Ø Stick with name brand vanilla wafers, such as Nabisco. The store
brands don't seem to have much vanilla flavor.

Ø The original recipe called for only 1 tsp of cardamom. If you find
the flavor too strong, go ahead and reduce it to this amount.