Recipe: Nutmeg cake with a meringue swirl

A nutmeg cake is still a very fine thing, especially with an upper crust of meringue swirled into the batter before baking.

Why was nutmeg pushed out of the mainstream of Western cooking?

Once the wrinkled brown seeds with their curious swirled centres were so essential to fine dining that the fashionable English gentleman would carry a silver grater and a nutmeg in his pocket, but the fad waned as the spice became more attainable.

Don't let vanilla and cinnamon steal all the glory in baking.

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 130g plain flour
• 1tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• ½tsp baking powder
• ½tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• ¼tsp fine sea salt
• 230g caster sugar
• 60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 120ml buttermilk, at room temperature
• 2 egg whites, at room temperature

Method

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. Grease and line a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

Whisk together the flour, nutmeg, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt, then set aside.

With a stand mixer, beat together 130g of the sugar with the butter at medium speed. Keep going for 3-4 minutes until it becomes really pale and fluffy.

Beat in the egg, adding a spoonful of the spiced flour if it starts to curdle. With the mixer speed on low, add the flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the buttermilk.

Stop the mixer after each addition when just combined. Spread into the cake tin.

Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until they start to foam. Add the remaining sugar, spoonful by spoonful, whisking all the time. Continue whisking at high speed for a few minutes until the mixture is very thick and shiny and a pinch between the fingers feels smooth.

Spread the meringue directly over the batter in the tin, then use a knife to slightly swirl the two layers together.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. It can be tricky to tell exactly what's what, but a skewer poked through the meringue to the cake underneath should come out with no batter clinging to it (a little meringue squidge or cake crumb is fine).

Cool in the tin for about 20 minutes before unmoulding and leaving to cool completely.

Spice switch

Ground mace offers a similar flavour profile to nutmeg and can be used in the same quantity. This is also a good recipe for putting any homemade spice extracts to use. Add 1tsp in place of the nutmeg.

A Whisper of Cardamom by Eleanor Ford (£26, Murdoch Books)