‘Beautiful food and health are priceless’
This is a heavenly cake from Ottolenghi, one of my favorite chefs. He is Isreali-English which is why you see souk ingredients such as rose water and cardamom. These are ingredients used in mainly middle eastern and Indian desserts. The smell of the food takes you on a journey to a different time and place.
These fragrances and spices are used in Ayurveda to heal, thus combining food and health into one beautiful dish.
I made this for a friends birthday. He is an artist and so I had to think outside the box to make sure this was aesthetically pleasing as well as tasty. The feedback was great. Noted as moist, fragrant and enticing.
Ingredients
- 1 tsp. cardamom powder
- 1 cup pistachios
- 1 cup almond meal
- 170g fine semolina
- 1.5 tsp. baking powder
- 300g unsalted butter
- 1.5 coconut sugar
- 4 eggs, lightly beaten
- Zest of 1 lemon, plus 1 tbsp. juice
- 2 tbsp. rosewater
- ½ tsp. vanilla
Syrup
- 100ml lemon juice
- 1/3 cup rosewater
- ½ cup caster sugar
To serve
- 2 tbsp pistachios
- 10g edible rose petals
Method
- Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a baking tray and line with baking paper. Grease a 23cm springform cake pan and line with baking paper
- Finely ground the pistachios using a blender, add the cardamom powder and blend again
- Transfer to a bowl and add almond meal, semolina, baking powder and ¼ tsp. fine salt
- Place butter and sugar in a separate bowl and beat until well combined, add egg slowly and continue to mix
- Fold through the dry mixture until well combined
- Add the rosewater and vanilla and fold through
- Add the lemon and lemon zest and fold in
- Spread the batter into the prepared pan and use a palette knife to smooth the top
- Bake for an hour at 350F or until a skewer inserted comes out clean (expect a little oil from the nuts)
- For the syrup, place all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat, bring to the boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven drizzle with the hot syrup, the hot cake will absorb it.
- Sprinkle with pistachios and rose petals for decoration
