Persian Love Cake
I haven’t really dated anybody in a long time here is what I learned about love so far. So lets make a love cake (Video Hook)
Ingredients
Almond Rose Cake
- Butter and Flour ((for greasing and flouring the pan))
- 220 g All purpose Flour ((1 ¾ cup)
- 217 g Almond Flour (2 ⅓ cups)
- 9 g Baking Powder (2 tsp)
- 2.5 g Baking Soda (1 tsp)
- 5.5 g Salt (1 tsp)
- 115 g Unsalted Butter (1 sticks softened at room temperature, cubed)
- 300 g Sugar (1½ cups)
- 4 Large Eggs (room temperature)
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
- ¼ Tsp Almond Extract
- 1 tsp Lemon Zest (about half a lemon)
- 10 pods Cardamom (Ground or ½ tsp Powder)
- 225 g Milk (1 cup with 1 Tbsp removed)
- 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- 2 Tbsp Rose Water
Rose Glaze
- 110 g Powdered sugar (1 cup)
- 7.5 g Lemon Juice (1 tsp)
- 17.5 g Rose Water (1 Tbsp & ½ tsp)
- Edible dried rose petals (optional)
- Ground raw pistachios (optional)
- Matcha Powder (optional)
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350º and combined All-Purpose Flour, Almond Flour, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, and Salt together. Optional, but I like to sift everything together after being combiend. This is our dry ingredient mixture.
- In a mixing bowl, cream together Butter, Lemon Zest, Cardamom, and Sugar until light and fluffy, medium high speed for 2-3 minutes. Incorporate in the Eggs, then finally mix in Vanilla, Almond Extract, Milk, Lemon Juice, and Rose Water. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add in the dry ingredients mixture, and mix on low until just barely incorporated.
- Pour the batter into a buttered and floured 9’’ cake tin that is lined with parchment on the bottom, smooth out the top if needed and bake for 55-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center.
- After baking, remove the tin from the oven to cool for 10 minutes. Then, trace around the edges of the cake tin using a thin knife, flip into a cooling rack, remove the parchment paper if used, and cool for at least one hour. Flipping the cake upside down will allow for a flat surface when cooling
- Make the Glaze, by combining Powdered Sugar, Rosewater, and Lemon juice together. Pour it over the cooled cake and top with Rose Petals, Crushed Pistachios, and Matcha Powder.
Notes
Even though mixing will get rid of most of the lumps, I like to sift different flours together so that the dry ingredients are homogenous. I would rather spend the extra time doing this than have my cake rise unevenly or have weird lumps of baking soda and powder in it.
Creaming the Butter, Lemon Zest, and Cardamom, and Sugar will not only add air into the batter, but will also release the lemon oils as the sugar grates against the zest. You can really add cardamom at any point of mixing, but do whatever is best for you, cubed butter will cream easier than a whole stick of butter.
Incorporating the eggs first before add all of the other ingredients will ensure that the whole mixture is homogenous.
You just want the dry mixture to barely get incorporated as mixing too much will cause gluten development and can make the cake more tough than it should be. Using almond flour, makes the cake denser and more rich, but will also make the cake tougher as well.
I use an offset spatula to smooth out the top because I really don't want it to bake unevenly and have a weird shaped top.
I flip my cake upsides down for a flatter surface when cooling. This allows me a better surface for decorating.
You can adjust the ratio of Rose Water and Lemon Juice together so that it taste less like rose and more sour to cut through the density of the cake. Here's a fun tip, if you use 1 Tbsp of Rosewater and 1.5 Tsp of lemon juice, it will make a glaze that taste like lychee.
Recipe adapted from Broma Bakery, and Cardamom and Tea (love their work)