Nutty Rose Ginger and Citrus Cake, sweet & unique
This gluten-free cake is inspired by Yasmin Khan’s Persian Love Cake. I added in a little orange, stem ginger and syrup. And, of course, I made a gluten-free version.
I love stem ginger and I added it here because I was curious to see how it would work with rosewater. Personally I love the mix of orange, stem ginger and rosewater.
The original love cake is decorated with raw pistachios and dried rose petals. It’s quite easy to find edible dried rose petals, but I have not found it so easy to source raw pistachios. So I used unsalted roasted pistachios. They do not have the vibrant green colour of the raw nuts but I think they still look good and taste great too.
Nutty Rose Ginger and Citrus Cake
Yield: 8″ cake
Suitable for: Gluten-free diet
Ingredients:
- 115g unsalted butter, softened
- 80g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 6 cardamom pods
- 45g gluten-free plain flour
- 165g ground almonds
- 1 orange
- 1 lemon
- stem ginger in syrup
- rosewater
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- pinch of finely ground salt
- 1 ¼ cups icing sugar
- unsalted pistachios
- dried rose petals
Instructions:
Make & bake the cake
In a large mixing bowl beat together the softened unsalted butter and the caster sugar until well mixed and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Next, zest the orange and place it in a small bowl with one tablespoon of freshly squeezed orange juice, one tablespoon of rosewater and two tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Now, remove the cardamom seeds from their pods into a pestle and mortar. Grind to a fine powder. If you don’t have pestle and mortar, you could use a coffee bean grinder or the back of spoon, if you apply a lot of pressure. Add the ground cardamom seeds to the mixing bowl together with the ground almonds, gluten-free plain flour, and baking soda. Add in a small pinch of finely ground salt. If you only have coarse salt to hand, grind it to a fine powder in the pestle and mortar or with the back of a spoon. Pour in the orange zest and juices. Mix everything together well. Grate about a one inch piece of stem ginger and mix in well also.Grease and line an 8″ cake tine and pour/spread the cake batter into the tin. Bake in the oven at 180 C for about 30 minutes. When it’s done if you poke the cake with a skewer it should come out clean. Take out of the oven and let it cool down for 15 minutes or so.Poke & drizzle with syrup
In a small cup or bowl mix 2 1/2 tablespoons of stem ginger syrup with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of rosewater. Taste and adjust to your liking. Does it need more sweetness, more syrup? More sharpness, more lemon juice? More rosewater? When you have the syrup to your liking, transfer the cake to a plate and poke the top of the cake several times with a skewer. Drizzle the syrup over the cake. Let the cake cool completely.Add lemon glaze & decorate
When the cake is cooled, mix together the icing sugar and one tablespoon of strained lemon juice. Beat till you have a nicely smooth mix. Spoon the glaze over the cake and transfer to the fridge for 30 minutes. When ready decorate the cake with shelled and crushed unsalted pistachios and crumbled dried rose petals.
Enjoy!
