CLEMENTINE AND CARDAMOM CAKE (eggless)

Its Raining clementines here in Paris right now. Amazing looking and incredibly tasty citrus. I have been wanting to use bake with these since the time they hit the market, but just kept procrastinating. However on my last visit to the closest sunday market near my apartment here I ended up buying really fresh ones, which of course tempted me to bake. Ohh and lets not forget the occasional sunshines these days! God it just does something to my creative spirits.

Also can we just take a moment to appreciate olive oil cakes? I feel they deserve a lot more buzz! haha. I mean jokes aside, the texture of the cake just turns out magically soft and the batter so velvety I could almost just eat the batter! 

                                              INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4cup + 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 tablespoon clementine juice
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 4 pods of ground cardamom (with skin)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 tablespoon rose water
• pinch of salt

                                                      METHOD

• Sift all the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt) in a large bowl and set aside.
• Now in a separate bowl whisk in the sugar and olive oil until the mixture becomes a little pale, now adding the yogurt, rose water, clementine juice, lemon juice, cardamom and whisk well.
• Add the dry mixture to this bowl by slowly folding in and turning it into a cake batter, be very gentle or you will knock out the air that we've worked to build up so far in the batter.
• Now transfer the velvety cake batter to the prepared bread loaf pan and gently place the sliced clementines in desired pattern and bake this cake for about 35-40 minutes until the inserted knife comes out clean.
• Let it cool for about 10-15 minutes before slicing it up. Feel free to savor it with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.