A Warm Earth Cake for Imbolc

I just finished baking a Warm Earth Cake in celebration of Imbolc.  Imbolc is a pagan holiday that marks the halfway point between the Winter Sostice and the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.

My celebration is fairly simple: bake a Warm Earth Cake and light lots of candles.

So here's the Warm Earth Cake:



Yes, it looks like dirt, or in this case mud.  The recipe comes from the marvelous book Witch in the Kitchen by Cait Johnson.   I love the book and refer to it at least eight times a year.  Her Wassail recipe is wonderful. So is the Savory Yuletide Pie, which I bake several times a year using whatever veggies are in season for the filling.

However I do make one major modification when I make my Warm Earth Cake:  I drop chunks of chocolate hazelnut butter on the cake batter before I sprinkle on the crumb topping.  The hazelnut butter melts and makes it go all gooey on top, hence the mud look.


Off to light the candles...