Armenian Nutmeg Cake

I spent a lot of time when I was a child sitting on a tall step stool in my mums kitchen. I would sit and watch my mum as she prepared so many tasty creations for our little family or our extended family and friends. She made, and taught me, many of the traditional recipe's that her mum taught her. But she also tried new things with great success.
This is one of those recipe's, it is called Armenian Nutmeg cake. It became an on going favourite of ours and in particular a favourite of my Dads, who absolutely loved it when mum would make this.

She would make it when we had people over for dinner, or for other events we went to. But my favourite memory of this cake, is sneaking a piece from the back of the car as we drove to our yearly family holiday at Second Valley beach.
Preparing for our family camping trip always involved our home being filled with the most incredible aromas of my mums baking. I think the memory of that sort of love is the best gift a mother could ever pass on to her child and I am so grateful that my mum gave that to me. 

Whenever I am in need of going back to that beautiful time in my life, all I have to do is bake this sweet, spicy delight. You'll love it.

Ingredients:

1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of self raising flour
125 grams of un-salted butter, cold and cut into cubes
2 cups of brown sugar, lightly spooned into cup (do not pack down)
3 teaspoons of ground nutmeg
1 egg, lightly beaten with a fork
1 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of bicarb soda
1 1/2 cups of walnuts, roughly chopped

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Grease a 27cm x 31cm shallow baking dish with un-salted butter

Sift flours into a bowl and using your fingers rub in the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add brown sugar and mix together.
Place half of this mixture into the greased baking tin, spread evenly and press down firmly to create a base.

 Dissolve the bi-carb soda in the milk.

Next, add the nutmeg to the remaining crumb mixture and mix well. Make a well in the centre and add the egg and the milk mixture, mix well.

Pour over the base and sprinkle walnuts on top evenly.

Bake for 30 minutes or until cake is firm and brown. Cool in the tray and then remove and cut into slices.

Makes approximately 20 slices.