March spice challenge; cardamon

Cardamon.  It's something I have a jar of, in the back of my cupboard.  I think.  This months spice rack challenge was going to require a bit of research.
Mr google is my friend, however.  Apparently it comes in a number of forms, which didn't help me much since I didn't really know what I had gathering dust back there.  However I did find a really useful web page that listed 20 different common pairings for cardamon. Among which was orange.  Now that was good, since I had a bag of oranges that had been also collecting dust given to me to make marmalade.  10 or so jars of marmalade later, I still had a dozen or so oranges, and the lemons which I have been slowly working my way though.

So orange.  I like self saucing puddings, and I also found mention of a cardamon infused syrup while googling away.  This was sounding like a possibility.  I'd have to say, it tasted pretty good, but sweet.  Very sweet.  And I'm a chocolate and sugar addict form way back, so, consider yourself warned.  Next time I'd cut back on the sugar in the syrup I think; or maybe halve it and use brown instead of white.  Aiming for a rich flavour, but not sickly.  However this is the recipe, tinker how you wish.

Self saucing orange pudding
serves 3



1 cup flour
1 T baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
rind of 2 oranges, finely grated
1 T oil
1/2 c freshly squeezed orange juice
1 egg
ice cream to serve

Sauce
1 c freshly squeezed orange juice
8 oz sugar
1 oz cardamon (green in pods)

So, the sauce.  Dissolve sugar in orange juice in a saucepan.  Bring to a rolling boil, remove from heat then add the cardamon.  Leave to cool for as long as you like.  The longer it seeps the stronger the cardamon flavour.  I left mine for about an hour and a half, there was a definite cardamon flavour that cut the intensity of the orange, but it wasn't overpowering. 

The puddings.
Lightly grease 3 ramekins.  Preheat oven to 180 deg c
Sift flour, baking powder and sugar into a bowl.  Whisk together oil, juice, orange rind and egg.  Stir into flour mixture until well combined.  Spoon into ramekins.

Gently spoon sauce over puddings.  Small tip; if you spoon it over rather than tip it from the bowl you don't get a hole in the pudding.

Cook in oven; its going to depend a little on the depth of the ramekins, but mine took about 10-15 min.  I didn't really keep track of time on this, sorry.

Upend pudding onto plate, beware, that sauce is going to be very hot.  Serve with icecream.  Enjoy