I love the smell of cardamom, ground or pods, and I use it quite liberally in curries etc… but I’ve always fancied trying it in cakes… so here it is: it has a strong distinctive flavour and the orange comes through first

Ingredients for the Streusel:

• 70g plain flour
• 60g pine nuts (¾ coarsely chopped)
• 50g sugar
• 1 tbsp grated orange zest
• 1 tsp instant coffee powder
• ½ tsp ground cardamom
• 1 pinch ground vanilla
• 50g butter, softened

Ingredients for the cake:

• 225g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ scant tsp salt
• 1 ¼ tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp instant coffee powder
• 100g sugar
• 2 tbsp finely grated orange zest
• 120g melted and cooled butter
• 2 eggs
• 120ml milk
• 110ml strong coffee, cooled
• 1 tsp coffee extract
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Preparation for the streusel:

• Toss all the ingredients except the butter in a large bowl with a wooden spoon
• Add the butter and, using your fingers, mix together until you get a crumbly mixture, of different sizes. Set aside

Preparation for the cake:

• Preheat oven to 200°C/180°fan/ Gas 5 and prepare a 20cm/ 8″ round cake tin. Place it on a baking tray
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, ground cardamom and coffee powder
• In a smaller bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingers until the sugar is well infused
• Mix it in with the dry ingredients and blend well
• Mix all the wet ingredients together in the smaller bowl and pour over the dry ingredients. Stir gently and only until the batter is evenly blended
• Scrape the batter
• into the prepared tin and top with an even layer of the streusel. Pat gently into the batter
• Bake for about 40mn: the cake well risen, golden crumbs and clean skewer from the centre
• Transfer immediately to a wire rack to cool