Cardamom Pound Cake with Mango Cream (Pound Cakes - Part 2)

We are eating mangoes and berries for breakfast almost everyday! That’s supposed to be healthy right? So I should not feel guilty about eating a piece of cake with the bowl of fruits. Good.

I wanted to use one of the pound cakes from the previous post and create a flavor that makes me nostalgic. Now this was experimentation territory and things could go wrong. And they did. But hey, this is all about challenging myself!

I felt like baking a cardamom cake with mangoes.

Why? Because in India summers meant long hot holidays, playing scruffy games on the streets, some boring and lots of fun visits to relatives and eating lots of mangoes. Ripe Alphonso mangoes are pulped by hand, chilled and served with some cardamom sprinkled on top. This was a real treat that one got only a couple of times during the short summer months. We really did look forward to it. Ahhh nostalgia…

I wanted to recreate those flavours. The cake is lightly spiced with fragrant cardamom.

This is potent stuff that can overpower everything, so I used only a touch for that beautiful aroma. And served it with mango cream reminiscent of the mango pulp we made.

What I learnt –

When there is baking soda in a recipe, it is normally adjusted to the acidic contents in the recipe such as buttermilk, lemon juice, brown sugar, cocoa powder, molasses etc. Tampering with either the baking soda or the acidic ingredients will result in giving you not so perfect results. You can read all about baking soda in this very helpful article on Handle the Heat

Cardamom Pound Cake

Ingredients – Makes 3 mini loaves
1½ cups (195gms) all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup, then leveled off with a knife
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1¼ tsp finely ground cardamom pods (from about 10-12 whole cardamoms)
Pinch of salt
1½ sticks (170gms) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (115gms) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature

Directions

Preheat oven to 325˚F and set an oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter and flour 3 mini loaf pans.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom powder and salt. Set aside
Cream together butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer till smooth. Slowly add sugar, beat on medium high till pale and fluffy. Make sure to scrape down sides at intervals.
Reduce speed to low and add one egg at a time till incorporated.
Remove bowl from mixer, add flour mixture three batches, and mix just until incorporated
Pour into prepared pans and firmly tap to remove any air bubbles and smooth the surface. Bake until light golden brown, for about 40 minutes. If the cake is browning too fast, cover with aluminum foil.

Let the cake cool in pan for 20 minutes, then invert onto a rack to cool completely.

The cake tastes better the next day as most pound cakes do. Serve it with mango cream or fresh sweet mango slices.

Mango Cream

Ingredients
2 medium sized sweet mangoes, peeled and diced
250 ml coconut cream or whipped cream or mixture of both (depending on taste preference)
Confectioner’s sugar as required
½tsp of Cardamom, optional

Directions

In a blender, puree the mangoes with the sugar till desired consistency. I like mine slightly chunky. Pour the pulp into a bowl, add the coconut cream and mix it well by hand. If using whipping cream, first whip it till soft peaks form, then fold into mango pulp. Sprinkle the cardamom powder if using and mix gently. Serve chilled on its own or with the Cardamom Pound Cake.