Lily's Sweet Treats: Persian Love Cake

Live from Lily's Little Kitchen... Baking inspiration in the form of Persian Love Cake. Here's our version (that's a variation on the original).

Ingredients:
Cake
• 200g unsalted butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 12 cardamom pods
• 100g plain flour
• 275g ground almonds
• 2 tbsp milk (optional but makes it super moist)
• 1 tsp rose water
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 lemon zest and juice
• A pinch of fine sea salt
• Saffron (optional)

Drizzle topping
• Caster sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Rose water

For the icing
• Double cream
• Coconut cream (optional)
• Icing sugar
• Rose petals
• Lemon zest

To make:
1) Pre-heat the oven to 160°C / Gas Mark 3
2) Cream the sugar and butter together, when combined add in the eggs
3) Add sifted flour, ground almonds, lemon (zest and juice), milk, rose water, baking powder and a pinch of salt to the mix
4) Pop the cardamom in a mortar and get the seeds out of the pods
5) Remove the pods and grind the cardamom into a powder and add into the mix also
6) At this point you can also add in a splash of saffron water if you would like
7) Grease cake tin with butter, we have used a square one, but you can also use a round one to make a traditional cake
8) Pour mixture evenly into the tin and bake for 40 - 45 mins
9) Towards the end of the baking time, make the drizzle by putting the sugar, lemon juice and a little splash of rose water in a pan on low heat until the sugar has melted to make a clear sugar syrup
10) Take cake out of the oven and poke holes into the top of it
11) Pour drizzle over the cake and then set aside to cool
12) Meanwhile using a hand whisk whip double cream
13) Add in coconut cream and some icing sugar to thicken (you can also add a small amount of rose water in the topping, however we opted for rose petals instead)
14) When the cake is fully cool spread the cream evenly over the cake then cut into slices
15) Finish with lemon zest and rose petals (you can also use a bit of saffron, almond flakes and pistachios also)

View Lily's Instagram video guide here:

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