If you’re most of my readers, you probably don’t have wattleseed in your spice pantry. If that’s the case, and you don’t really want to buy any (from Australia) then you may want to breeze on by this recipe. If you’re intrigued, you may want to look at my previous post about wattleseed, incorporated in the recipe for wattleseed ice cream – my favorite (to date) wattleseed recipe.
Have you ever made something – in this case baked something – and it was good, but not the “best,” so you gave it away, or even tipped it into the trash? Sometimes it’s just that whatever it was didn’t 
appeal to you the next day – I’ve had that happen often enough. Like left overs! When I made this cake, I also made the wattleseed ice cream along with it. The ice cream was the star of the show. No question! I was bereft when the quart of wattleseed ice cream was gone. In the meantime I’ve restocked my wattleseed supply. That, in itself is another story – an acquaintance at a local herb and spice store had an employee who was visiting Australia – one thing led to another and I ordered wattleseed from Vic Chericoff, had it shipped to where this employee was staying and she brought it home in her suitcase! I gave her a Starbucks card as a thank you. Yippee. I now have enough wattleseed to make another 3-4 batches of ice cream. There’s a lesson here – if anyone you know is going to Australia make arrangements to have them bring you some! I bought it when I was in Australia 2 years ago, but I only bought a little bit. Definitely not enough!
The cake recipe. Well, I found it on a website that also (it just happens) sells wattleseed and some other indigenous Australian products. And a wattleseed cookbook. And has a group of wattleseed recipes too. The cake looked interesting – I like Bundt cakes. I had an orange and a lemon, so I put it together and baked it up in a flash. The batter is divided in half – half gets wattleseed – the other half gets orange/lemon flavorings. You swirl it
around in the pan a bit and that’s what you get. The above photo shows the top before I’d swirled it. The one at right shows it after I’d used a knife to swirl the batter.
So, to get back to this cake story . . . after making the cake I was hoping the wattleseed would be just permeate the flavor. It didn’t. What I tasted was the orange and lemon in it. Hmmm. Not what I had in mind. We had it that night, and I think my DH and I had a piece the next night. By the following day it didn’t appeal to me at all, so without asking my DH I threw it out. My hubby doesn’t eat much sweets, so I never thought for a minute he would miss it. Oh yessiree, he did! Went hunting for it a day or so later. Therefore, I made a couple of minor flavor changes to this recipe – toning down the orange (I only added lemon because I didn’t have enough with just one orange) and lemon. Use small ones so the zest doesn’t overpower the cake. That’s all. And definitely don’t over bake it – I think I did and it was a bit on the dry side. I prefer moist cakes. My DH I guess likes cakes drier than I do!
What I liked: well, that here’s another way to use wattleseed. I don’t have a big inventory of recipes for it (yet), although if you click on the link up above you’ll find several, mostly desserts. Just remember that wattleseed is subtle. You don’t want to use a lot of it (it’s precious, remember, for a Californian since it ships from Australia!) in any case. I’ll watch the baking time very carefully next time.
What I didn’t like: that the wattleseed flavor wasn’t the predominant flavor. But it was still nice anyway. A kind of a white spice cake. See what you think and let me know!
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Orange, Lemon & Wattleseed Butter Cake
Recipe By: Adapted slightly from www.footesidefarm.com/orange-wattle-seed-butter-cake/
Serving Size: 12
NOTES: You can use all orange zest and juice if preferred. I didn’t have enough orange, so use a lemon to supplement the juice and rind. I’ve adjusted this recipe slightly to tone down the orange and lemon flavor since I want the wattleseed flavor to shine through instead.
8 3/4 ounces butter — (2 cubes plus a little bit)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups self-rising flour
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons wattleseed
1 medium orange — rind and juice (you’ll want 1/2 cup juice total)
1 small lemon — rind and juice (juice added to the orange above)
1. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, and beat until combined.
2. Divide mixture in half.
3. To one mix add ground wattleseed, 1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour and 1/2 cup of milk. Mix until combined.
4. To the other add 1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour, rind from one orange and 1/2 cup of orange and lemon juices. Mix until combined.
5. Spoon mixture into Bundt pan – greased and lightly floured – alternating mixtures. Gently stir a knife through the mixture to give a swirled effect.
6. Bake in a 350° (180° C) oven for approx 40 minutes or until a pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do NOT over bake!
Per Serving: 402 Calories; 20g Fat (43.3% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 51g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 119mg Cholesterol; 602mg Sodium.
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