This date and cardamom cake is our take on the Waitrose date, toffee and cardamom cake and I’ve got to say, it is goooooooodd.  Kind of like a mix between sticky toffee pudding and a cake.  Not too faffy either and uses pretty much all ingredients we have in the house all the time.  Which is great, because it looks and tastes impressive without actually requiring much effort.

Ingredients:

165g dates

140g sunflower oil

150g coconut palm sugar

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

120g yoghurt

200g plain white flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 cardamom pods

Caramel topping:

1 tin coconut milk

3/4 cup coconut palm sugar

3 cardamom pods

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Chop the dates and place in a saucepan with 200ml water.  Bring to the boil and simmer for around 10 minutes or until the dates are soft and there isn’t much water left.

Remove the seeds from the cardamom pods and grind until fine.

Mix all the other ingredients together then add the date mixture.  Use an electric mixer to blend until smooth.

Pour into 2 greased cake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes.

To make the caramel, heat the sugar in a saucepan until warm, stirring regularly.  Remove the set coconut cream from the tin of coconut milk and add to the sugar.  We don’t use the coconut water in this recipe.  Remove the seeds from the cardamom pods and grind.  Add to the sauce.  Heat to simmering and leave on the heat until it has the consistency you want (it will thicken a bit once cooled).

Slather the caramel over the cake and enjoy!  This recipe makes enough for two cakes so you could sandwich them together with some cream but we froze one to be enjoyed later.