Cake making part 2

Very timely I thought to finish my cake spiel given that I currently have one in the oven (cake! cake!). Ok so fave flavours dejour:

Rose and cardamom cake
Otherwise known as Mountainspice's birthday cake thanks to Mermaidgrrl. Use plain yoghurt in mix (mmm biodynamic Jalna is good) instead of butter, add a dash of oil to up fat content accordingly. Rosewater - think about a teaspoon, maybe two, go by your nose. Cardamom - use whole pods rather than powdered, pop open about 7 of the little green wonders, and crush up the seeds in a mortar and pestle. Don't have one? Get one! Well worth it for the smell alone while crushing them. Add all of this into the mixture and bake.

Ice with soft peaks of fluffy white icing to which you have added another teaspoon or two of rosewater and decorate with:
- cinnamon sticks or sprinkle lightly with nutmeg
- if you want pink and cute, you can decorate iced cake with fresh rose petals (if you can get them from a garden, don't use florist bought stuff as this is going in your belly and you don't know what they've been sprayed with), or
-(the time consuming but worth it option) dip individual petals in beaten egg white, then coat each petal both sides with castor sugar, put on a cake cooler to dry. They should go almost crispy when dried out (a few hours). Sprinkle cake with these. Note: not so great on highly humid days, sugar goes moist.

OR make a rose syrup and pour over the cake while warm. Make this in a small saucepan on low heat on the stove: add about a cup of water, three desert spoons of sugar, throw in a vanilla pod or cinnamon stick, and some fresh rose petals. If you go the syrup option, add a few drops of rosewater to the syrup when cooled, before pouring (slowly! you don't want a flood!) on your cake. Spooning over with a tablespoon is good, as is poking tiny tiny holes in unobtrusive places on the cake to help soakage.

Serve with a pot of tea (plain black or Russian cravan if you like it), and get out the best doilies - this is a nice Sunday afternoon tea cake, or desert after a curry.

Honey and spice cake
Make the mix with spices in it, but no honey. Spices pref freshly ground in your new mortar and pestle. Go wild, use your nose and use any combo you like. I prefer to stick to about 3 spices, so the flavours don't get muddy. A grand total of a couple of teaspoons of spice should do it. Some nice combos:
- cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves (go very light on the cloves)
- cardamom, star anise, cinnamon
- a little bit of garam marsala spice mix plus extra cardomomn or cinnamon
- go wild and try a bit of finely ground pepper or some tumeric to give the cake a little edge

For extra substance add almond meal to the mix - it will give it a good texture, make it nice and firm, and also add a nice slightly bitter taste that will go well with the syrup.

Make a syrup out of honey and water in a pan on the stove and pour over the cake, so that it is moist on the top to touch, but not swimming. Let sit for an hour or two in fridge and serve with black coffee, yum!