I am a huge fan of The Great British Bake off. My dream, is to hopefully one day take part in the South African version of it.

I never watched the season where Chetna Makan was a contestant, but I did manage to catch recap episode show a while back.

That is where I found out she published 2 cook books and I knew that I just had to get my hands on those books… my latest addiction is collection recipe books, most women shop for shoes… not me, I make a bee line straight for the recipe book section.

I loved the cake on the front cover of her book “The Cardamom Trail,” of course the downside, most of her cake recipes use eggs… but have no fear, I just substituted the eggs with my homemade apple sauce… wink wink.

My parents thought the icing was a bit sweet since it had melted chocolate in it, but I loved it.

Ingredients for the cake:

• 225g x rama margarine.
• 225g x castor sugar.
• 1 1/3 x cups apple sauce.
• 250g x self raising flour.
• 1 x tsp baking powder.
• 1 x tsp cardamom powder.
• 100ml x room temperature milk.
• 50g x chopped pistachio nuts.
• 50g x white chocolate chips

Method:

• In a bowl, cream the margarine and sugar, till light and fluffy.
• Add the apple sauce and whisk till nicely combined.
• Add the self raising flour, cardamom powder, baking powder and milk, whisk until everything is combined.
• Fold in the nuts and the chocolate chips.
• Pour into a lightly greased cake tin.
• Pop into a pre-heated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes, or until the cake tester comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes in the pan, before turning out onto a cooling rack and allowing to cool completely.

Ingredients for the icing:

• 150g x white chocolate… I used Cadbury Dream chocolate.
• 150g x rama margarine.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• Pistachio nuts for decorations.

Method for the icing:

• Gently melt the white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water on the stove.
• While the chocolate is melting, cream the margarine till light and fluffy.
• Add the vanilla essence and mix.
• Fold in the melted chocolate and mix till everything is well combined.
• Generously ice the top of the cake, sprinkle and grate the nuts over the top.
• Pop into the fridge for 30 minutes so that the icing can firm up a little before serving.