Persian Love Cake
Servings: 1 cake
Ingredients
INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE
- 100 g toasted pistachios
- 300 g toasted blanched almonds
- 100 g desiccated coconut
- 150 g raw caster sugar or plain caster sugar
- 150 g light muscovado sugar or brown sugar
- 150 g butter room temperature, cubed
- 4 x 60g eggs
- 250 g full fat plain Greek yoghurt
- Zest of 1 orange
- 1 tbls baking powder
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp rose water
- 2 tsp sea salt flakes or 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
FOR TOPPING
- 100 g pistachios lightly chopped, untoasted
- or if preferred a combination of:
- 50 g pistachios lightly chopped and untoasted and
- 50 g slivered almonds untoasted
FOR SERVING
- Edible rose petals optional but nice
- Greek yoghurt
- Honey
Instructions
METHOD
- Preheat oven to 160 degrees fan forced, and place rack into middle of oven
- Grease and line base and sides of a 24cm (base measurement) round spring form cake tin (line base with a piece of baking paper that protrudes from the base so you can use that to remove the cake to a cooling rack when necessary)
- Prepare topping in a small bowl so that it is ready to use, and put aside
- Place nuts into TM bowl and mill 6 seconds / speed 9
- Add the coconut and mix 5 seconds / reverse / speed 4, put aside
- Add all the other ingredients to TM bowl and blend 10 seconds / speed 6, scrape around bowl and repeat 10 seconds / speed 6
- Scrape around bowl, add nut and coconut mix and blend 10 seconds / speed 5, scrape around bowl and blend again for 10 seconds / speed 5
- Pour batter into cake tin, smooth the top, and sprinkle on topping (sometimes I like to sprinkle the topping towards the edges leaving a little space in the middle, but you can sprinkle it over the whole top if you like)
- Place cake into oven and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, turn tin around and continue for another 10 minutes until done when tested with a skewer (it takes exactly 1 hour 25 minutes in my oven) NB: whilst in the oven, the cake may get a couple of small cracks in the top as it bakes, but these will disappear as the cake cools and you will end up with a level top of toasted nuts on the cake)
- Remove cake from oven and allow to cool in tin for 30 minutes before removing to a cake rack to cool completely (to move to a cooling rack, simply unclip and remove the sides of the tin, then use the extended baking paper to simply slide the cake - still on the baking paper - onto the cooling rack to cool completely before removing the paper)
- Serve drizzled with a little honey over the top of each slice, a spoonful of Greek yoghurt on the side, and a scattering of rose petals if desired
- Cake will keep in an airtight container for up to four days, but the nut topping will soften a little over this time
Notes
This is not a very high cake so I found a 24cm round spring form cake tin (base measurement) is perfect. If you use a bigger tin the cake will be thinner, and if you use a smaller tin the cake will be thicker, but then you have the issue of inconsistent cooking times and results (please use a ruler to measure the base of your tin to ensure it is 24cm wide).
I have suggested serving the cake with a drizzle of honey and a dollop of Greek yoghurt … it is also lovely served with vanilla bean ice-cream in place of the yoghurt.
I have made this cake using the zest of an orange as I love that with pistachios, but it is just as nice without it so if you have an orange use it, but if not don't worry as the cake will still be lovely.
In this recipe I like to toast the nuts for more flavour ... so to bake your nuts place them onto a baking tray and pop into a pre-heated 180 degrees fan forced oven for 10 minutes, remove and allow to cool completely before proceeding with the recipe.
PLEASE NOTE: The nuts used in the topping are untoasted as they will toast up in the oven whilst the bake is baking. For the topping you can use either all pistachios, or a combination of pistachios and almonds ... whatever you prefer.