If you are looking for a gorgeous cake that is different from the norm, then this month's Daring Bakers challenge serves up a gorgeous, caramelly nutmeg coffee cake:
The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.
(This is not my grammar - these are the blog checking lines and I cannot change them.)
I didn't have time to make both, so it was a no brainer to choose the Armenian nutmeg cake. And what a lovely cake it is - it has a dryer bottom crumb layer topped with a rich batter, with nuts on top. I didn't have walnuts, so I used flaked almonds instead. Here is the end result:
The cake has warm, caramel-like undertones from the brown sugar, with a spicy edge from the nutmeg.
A slice of the cake served warm with icecream was just perfect:
To see how the other Daring Bakers fared, visit the slideshow at The Daring Kitchen.
