Dutch Kruidnoten and Mandarin Cake Bread

It's the mooooost wonderful time of the yeaar. For the Dutch, that is, because our shops are overloaded with the wonderful sweet gingerbreadlike cookies called "kruidnoten". Never heard of 'em? That's okay, but please try them when you can get your hands on them. And also make this wonderful cake with them! Feel free to replace the kruidnoten with gingerbread if you can't wait. :) Anyway, the combination of gingerbreadlike products and the taste of mandarins is wonderful! And they both belong to this season, so it's perfect!

150 grams Flour

100 grams Kruidnoten or Gingerbreid
200 grams Sugar
200 gram Full-cream Butter
4 Eggs
Juice of 3 Manadarins
1 tsp Baking powder

It's really easy! Preheat the oven at 170 degrees Celsius. Make sure the butter is at room temperature. Crush the kruidnoten (or gingerbread). You can do this in a foodprocessor or with a cloth and hammer, whatever you want! Mix the crushed kruidnoten with the flour and baking powder.

Put the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix until fluffy and add the eggs one by one. Once you have a fluffy mixture, mix in the flour mixture and make sure it ends up a smooth batter. Last but not least, mix in the mandarin juice.

Grease up a baking tin and put the batter in there. Slide it in the oven for about 45 minutes. You can check if it's done by poking a pin in there. Pin wet? Not done. Pin dry? Done! This cake tastes like everything autumn is made of. Yummm!