Cardamom Flavored Whipped Cream?

[MMRuth]

I'm thinking of making a riff off a dish I had in London called "Eton Mess". I plan to use leftover rosewater and pistachio meringues, broken up, then folded in whipped cream and some kind of fruit. I have both dried apricots, and some fresh plums - I might stew the latter. I'd like to have cardamom flavoured whipped cream, but I'm worried that just adding the ground spice to the whipped cream might not work. Any thoughts on this? I could stew the fruit with some cardamom .... I also have a lovely Nutella-like pistachio spread - maybe I could work that into the cream?

[Caroline1]

Crush whole cardamom to a powder with a mortar and pestle and add it to the cream prior to whipping. Should work fine. I mix it frequently into sour cream and it picks up the flavor just fine. Good luck! And can I have a taste? Sounds really good!

[Channa]

Traditional Eton Mess is simple and perfect. The more you stray from the original, the less perfect it will be. Rosewater, pistachios, apricots, cardamom, pistachio spread, whipped cream -- I think that has too many flavours.

But, lol, that's not what you asked, is it! If you grind the cardamom seeds and then put them through a fine sieve, you'll have a lovely powder that won't be gritty at all. I do that to flavour yoghurt, and it works very well, You can taste as you go, and get exactly the amount of cardamom flavour you want.

[MMRuth]

Good point about straying from simplicity ... am I correct that the traditional ingredients are plain meringue, whipped cream and strawberries?

[Channa]

Yes, most often, although bananas are also common. There are shedloads of recipes that call for alcohol-marinated berries, or berry puree folded into whipped cream like a fool. But even Heston Blumenthal, who can't leave a good recipe alone, goes with simplicity on this one:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyl...

[MMRuth]

Thanks! Maybe I'll come up for a different name for it then - though inspired by an Eton Mess!

[Channa]

Less messy versions are sometimes called Eton Tidy.
:-D

[Phoo_d]

Hi Ruth. That sounds lovely. I would think if you added the cardamom to the whipped cream while it was still in the liquid state and mixed it well, that the flavor would come through. The latest issue of Gourmet has an interesting recipe for a cardamom vanilla pound cake that talks about the trickiness of balancing vanilla and cardamom flavors in a dish. It was an interesting read (and the cake looked great). A nutella-like pistachio spread sounds heavenly. I bet it would work well to add another texture into the dish.

[puddin head]

what if you heated the cream and infused it with cardamom in cheesecloth. Then chill it and whip it. You would get the cardamom flavor without the gritty ground texture.

[MMRuth]

For some reason, I wasn't sure if the cream would whip properly after being heated and then cooled again, though I don't know where I got that idea. I also have cardamom pods that I could use ....

[JungMann]

You can infuse a portion of the cream (say 1/4 out of it) with cardamom pods, then cool before adding back to the rest of the whipping cream and whipping. But if you have powdered cardamom, you can simply add to the cream.