Today is my sweetheart's birthday, woo hoo!
Our tradition has always been for me to make him a luscious dessert of his choice. More often than not, he chooses his standby, my bittersweet chocolate flourless torte. This year, however, he decided to strike out and try something brand new, finding a recipe on Pinterest for a saffron & cardamom cake with white chocolate ganache and rose chikki crumbled on top - or, as it's more commonly known?
Persian Love Cake.
How perfect is that y'all? It was a bit daunting but that's what I love about baking desserts - so much to learn and play around with and have a willing taste tester by my side...
So with that, here's how the baking experience went:
The cake itself was pretty easy to make. I made it dairy-free with vegan butter and almond milk. I found the texture mildly reminiscent of tres leches, and with the added amazing scent of cardamom and saffron. However, the recipe seriously called for a CUP of sugar - yikes! While the birthday boy loved it, for me it was cloyingly sweet and took away from the real flavors.
The frosting was honestly not my favorite, a white chocolate ganache made with vegan white chocolate chips and organic condensed milk (the non-dairy portion because of the latter) that was FAR too sweet. As a former chocolatier, I am quite averse to using any type of sweetened dairy (or any additional sweetener, for that matter) in ganache, not to mention using actual dairy at all as it is utterly unnecessary, and furthermore, using condensed milk totally turns it into sloppy frosting that runs, rather than a true ganache which behaves (sets) completely differently.
The rose chikki crumbled on top of the cake is basically an almond/peanut brittle with rose water and rose petals from our garden - has potential. While I had hoped to find premade chikki at a specialty grocer up and was unsuccessful, I found a recipe on Pinterest to make it at home, but struggled to get the sugar syrup liquefied in a smooth way. But that being said? Oh hella yum it was good...so good I actually bottled up the leftovers and told my husband to take it to work to snarf it down there :)
So it was absolutely a learning experience - mainly, reminding me to trust my own instincts as a baker and not take the recipe at face value. I've seen other recipes since which are subtler on the sweetness, add lemon and yogurt to the cake itself, go one step further and actually poke holes for greater absorption of the liquids (like one does with tres leches), or use semolina instead of all-purpose flour, and it's opened up the rabbit hole of cake-making, should I want to try some tastier - and far less sweet! - alternatives. But the cake texture was perfection, it baked beautifully, so I cheer that.
And most importantly...? My love was happy on his special internationally flavored birthday, eating his favorite Southern buttermilk biscuits for brekkie with blueberries we picked, noshing on big bowls of homemade Korean bibimbap I made with local pastured pork I'd marinated & grilled into bulgogi, and served with homemade gochujang, and finishing off with this Iranian dessert inspired by the story of a woman attempting to win the heart of a man via his stomach. A tale as old as time, no?
Today's celebration was low-key, mid-week, close-to-home, but still special to just have quality time together in a world that often seems so chaotic, you know? But I'll still share pictures of his past birthday adventures, to remind him and everyone out there who might see this, just how much I love this guy...
Comments