This elegant little vanilla cake is a keeper. It is good enough to serve guests and a delicious self-indulgence when you raid the kitchen at midnight.
I’m always drawn to a recipe that makes interesting use of an ingredient that is unusual in its genre. In this case, this peach cake uses fennel seeds which have a subtle licorice-like flavor.
If you are not familiar with fennel and fennel seeds, here is a photo. Both are readily available in your market.
Fennel has been consumed for a very long time. Reportedly, Roman warriors believed that fennel seeds gave them extra strength and kept them thin. The discussion of fennel in the diet made its way into ancient mythology, too. Prometheus, for example, hid fire in a fennel stalk. Dionysus carried a wand of fennel.
During the Middle Ages, Charlemagne decreed that fennel must be grown in every garden, believing that the herb bore healing properties. Medieval Europeans also stuffed fennel fronds in keyholes and hung it on doors to ward off ghosts. Even the Puritans bought into the fennel story. Reportedly, they carried the idea of consuming fennel seeds in church from Europe to America, believing that chewing the seeds would suppress stomach sounds during services. Fennel seeds were called “meeting seeds.”
Today, fennel bulbs and seeds are pretty widely used in stews and gratins. They also are still used as a digestive. Next time you are out enjoying an Indian meal, be sure to grab a handful of the fennel (and other seeds) commonly left in a bowl beside the register as you leave the restaurant. Indians chew the seeds to freshen their breath and to aid digestion after a heavy meal.
You can find several savory recipes using fennel here on Blue Cayenne. Just type “fennel” into the search bar to the right.
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This recipe for Vanilla Cake With Peaches and Fennel Seeds is adapted from one that appears in the Honey and Company cookbook Golden. The book is available here.
