Then I thought, I'll contact Vanessa to see whether there were any baking recipes that need testing for 'Prepped'?  

Waiting with anticipation to see what wondrous recipe would be winging its way to me.........it arrived - Victoria Sponge.   Not ground-breaking, earth-shatteringly different but a good old traditional fresh cream Victoria Sponge.   But surely there must be a twist?  Vanessa wouldn't just dream up a standard Vicky sponge would she?  Well of course not, so the twist was cardamom sugar, just like an infused vanilla sugar but with cardamom instead. This normally takes 3 -4 weeks to infuse, which of course I didn't have so Vanessa advised me that a 1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom would be fine. 

The recipe was easy to follow, all in the kitchenaid with a minimum of washing up - perfect.  A few tweaks with quantities, 400 ml of double cream is way too much, 250ml was just fine.   I filled up the tins (having greased and lined them) and popped them in the oven.  

The friend was delighted with my offering and the other guests were very keen to have a 'slither' (well it is January!) of the still warm cream and strawberry jam filled sponge.  When I asked them whether they could taste anything unusual about the flavour of the sponge, no-one could pin-point it, although they could taste something, very nice of course.

"Cardamom" I said

"Cardamom?" They said

"Yes, ground cardamom in the sponge mix"

"Well, I wouldn't have expected that, its really nice, not overpowering but very nice"

A great success, I'll certainly be making that one again and won't be afraid to add the cardamom, and when 'Prepped' is published, I shall be making some cardamom sugar for sure.

Thanks Vanessa,