WHAT YOU NEED

For the Armenian Spice Cake

125g butter, plus extra for greasing
400g Brown Sugar (below)
300g Self-raising Flour (below)
½tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
250ml full-cream milk
2 free-range eggs, beaten
2 tsp ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp Garam Masala
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger

For the cream cheese icing

200g cream cheese, softened
125g icing (confectioners’) sugar
50g butter, softened
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease and line (including the side) a 20cm round cake tin.

Combine the brown sugar and flour. Rub in the butter (Or do this in a food processor if you have one.) It will look like crumbs.

Divide the mixture in half and gently pat half of the crumbs into the base of the prepared tin. Don’t press down too enthusiastically or it’ll be too hard after baking.

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk and add to the other half of the mix, along with the eggs and spices. Mix together well, then pour over the base.

Bake for approximately 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Mum always made hers traditionally, with walnuts on top, but I leave them off. There are enough nuts in this house already. You can ice it if you like.