11-year-old volunteered to bake a cake for our local church’s annual festival this year. We settled on Ottolenghi’s pound cake – the version with an adult flavor (!) because being 11-year-old is no longer a kid. She’s preteen. Oh wow, should we start biting our nails now? This is too fast!

Coffee and cardamom pound cake

(Adapted from Ottolenghi’s Sweet)

For a 9″ bundt cake:
90 ml milk (at room temperature)
6 eggs (at room temperature)
2 tsp vanilla extract
300 g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
300 g sugar
300 g butter (at room temperature)
About 30 cardamom pods (peeled, and ground to about 1 tsp)
2 tsp espresso powder + 2 tsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder + 1 tbs warm milk

For icing:
2 tbs warm milk
2 tsp espresso powder
180 g confectioners’ sugar

To bake the pound cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Grease and flour a 9″ bundt pan.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk milk + eggs + vanilla extract.
4. In a large bowl, whisk flour + baking powder + salt + sugar.
5. Add the butter + 1/2 wet ingredients in step (3) to the dry ingredients in step (4)
6. Use and handheld mixer to mix until combined.
7. Gradually add half of the remaining wet ingredients and mix until combined.
8. Add the remaining wet ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
9. Divide the batter into 2 bowls.
10. In the first bowl, add ground cardamom to the batter.
11. In a small bowl, mix 2 tsp espresso powder + 2 tsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder + 1 tbs warm milk.
12. In the second bowl of batter, add the espresso-cocoa mixture.
13. Pour the two mixtures into the bundt pan: 2 blocks of each color.
14. Use a skewer to make a swirl once through the batter to create a marble effect.
15. Bake for 50 minutes.
16. Remove from the oven and set aside for 10 minutes.
17. Revert the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing:

1. In a medium bowl, combine espresso powder + warm milk.
2. Whisk in confectioners’ sugar until smooth.
   • Note: add a few drops of milk if the icing is too thick. Or add a few more pinches of sugar if the icing is too watery.
3. Spoon the icing all over the cooled cake and let the icing drips down the sides.