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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Angelica Seed Pound Cake

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angelica seed poundcake recipe

The angelica seed poundcake being served by one of my line cooks at Piney Hill Farm. Photo credit: Arianna Skoog.

When I was dreaming up what to serve at the Slow Food MN’s Wild Things dinner last year, I knew I had to have an interesting dessert. Most of the other dinners of the previous years didn’t include a sweet option to finish the event, so I wanted to up the ante.

Whatever the dessert was going to be, it needed to be shelf stable, easy to make en-masse, and easy for me to direct people to plate, since we were going to be serving 100+people, on a farm with little to no equipment, which is thankfully easier to do with desserts as they’re generally cold or room temperature compared to hot, savory dishes.

About a month before the dinner I started playing around with angelica as a dessert theme, since I would be able to use the fresh leaves and stem from the plant, as well as the seeds from the previous year that I could use to flavor something, with the end result including all of the different parts of the plant except the root.

Angelica seed pound cake

One of our coolers at the restaurant started to become a sort of graveyard for my poundcakes. There’s about 8 different batches on this tray. I’m my own worst critic.

Perfectionist that I am, I was never happy with the result, some had too much angelica, some too little, I agonized over small tweaks to each recipe, adjusting 1/4 teaspoon of citrus zest there and there, varying amounts of seeds, etc.

After I came up with a blend of seasonings I liked, I started to play with different types of flour, my end goal being a cake that was dense, but still moist and not crumbly like some pound cakes can end up being. All in all I probably made the cake 10 different ways, but my favorite was one of the first ones that included some hazelnut flour in the batter to give it a nutty edge.

Eventually my working on the angelica cake became sort of a joke around the kitchen, and my line cooks would see me measuring out flour, sugar and eggs, knowing I was trying another batch. I could feel their eyes on me, waiting to ask: “more poundcake chef?” to which I remember replying towards the end of testing: “YES I’M MAKING MORE POUNDCAKE! It began to become a sort of sore spot for me, I was glad to have it be over with.

In the end it was one of my favorite dishes I made throughout the year-a study of a plant I’ve learned so much from, and a celebration of a forgotten herb.

angelica seed pound cake

Photo credit: Arianna Skoog Photography.

angelica seed poundcake recipe
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Angelica Seed Pound Cake

A poundcake flavored with wild angelica seeds
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time1 hr
Course: Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Angelica, Poundcake

Equipment

  • Loaf pan, spice grinder

Ingredients

  • 1 cup almond meal
  • 1 cup cake flour sifted
  • 4 eggs plus one yolk
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon toasted ground angelica seed
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 5 scrapes each: orange and lemon zest
  • 8 ounces unsalted butter
  • Pinch of kosher salt

Instructions

  • Cream the sugar, vanilla, zests and butter in a small stand mixer with the paddle attachment, scraping down the sides as needed to clean the bowl, until the mixture is lightened in color and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
  • Sift flour and baking powder and mix well with the almond meal, angelica seed, and and salt and mix for another minute until combined.
  • Continue mixing and add the eggs, one at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding the next one. Add the milk. Use a spatula to stir in the all purpose flour by hand until just combined.
  • Spread the filling into a Pullman pan or loaf pan and bake at 300 for roughly one hour or until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Notes

This can also be made with all cake flour

Related

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Next Post: Virginia Waterleaf »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. river

    September 17, 2018 at 12:48 am

    Your recipe doesn’t say at which point the angelica seeds are added to the mix. For someone with less knowledge of baking than me, this could be a problem.

    Reply
  2. Carla Beaudet

    August 24, 2019 at 4:36 pm

    I had access only to the seeds (given to me by a friend who grows Angelica in her garden), not the leaves or the candied young stalks, but I made this cake and served it up at book club to great approval. It’s a excellent recipe, though you did neglect to mention at what stage the star ingredient (the 5 TBs toasted ground angelica seed) is added. I simply mixed it in with the flour, no problem, but I thought you might want to edit the directions to include it?

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      August 24, 2019 at 5:28 pm

      Yes, you mix with the flour. I adjusted it. Thanks!

      Reply

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Alan Bergo
I made vegan fish sauce from ramp juice. You tak I made vegan fish sauce from ramp juice. 

You take the pure juice of the leaves, mix it with salt, Koji rice, and more chopped fresh ramp leaves, then ferment it for a bit. 

After the fermentation you put it into a dehydrator and cook it at 145-150 F for 30 days. 

The slow heat causes a Maillard/browning reaction over time. 

After 30 days you strain the liquid and bottle it. It’s the closest thing to plant-based fish sauce I’ve had yet. 

The potency of ramps is a pretty darn good approximation of the glutamates in meat. But you could prob make something similar with combinations of other alliums. 

The taste is crazy. I get toasted ramp, followed by mellow notes from the fermentation. Potent and delicate at the same time. 

I’ve been using it to make simple Japanese-style dipping sauces for tempura etc. 

Pics: 
2: Ramp juice 
3: Juicy leaf pulp 
4: Squeezing excess juice from the pulp
5: After 5 days at 145F 
6: After 30 days 
7: Straining through Muslin to finish

#ramps #veganfishsauce #experimentalfood #kojibuildscommunity #fermentation #foraging
Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Pepin used to make for French president Charles de Gaulle. 

You bake eggs in a ramekin with shrimp topped with creamy morel sauce and eat with toast points. 

Makes for a really special brunch or breakfast. Recipe’s on my site, but it’s even better to watch Jacques make it on you tube. 

#jacquespepin #morels #shrimp #morilles #brunchtime
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
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