I love floral flavours-
lavender, rose, orange blossom, and I even have jasmine essence and magnolia flavouring as well. As one who'd banned from perfumes and artificial scents due to my various InTolerances, I think I appreciate them all the more.
We can only use unscented or pure eucalyptus or orange oil based cleaners in my house, and even being too close to someone overscented can set me off.
One time MiddleC was house sitting for a few months, then moved back in. The first day was terrible! I was cranky, unreasonable and felt plain angry with her. I was able to realise that it really was weird, and I wasn't resentful of her for being home, but it wasn't until that night when I started itching that I realised it was something environmental not plain mental that ailed me! Poor girl had to wash all her clothes and bedding and throw out all her forbidden smellies like soap, wash powders and the rest before I could get as close to her as normal.
Anyway, after such a success with my Lime and Coconut cake a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd continue in the spirit of things and try another super moist rich syrup cake, but this time using one of my favourite flavourings, Rose. What goes with rose, well pistachio of course, and thanks to my new Thermo, I can make my own fantastic pistachio meal whenever I want. Of course you can just use almond meal, or a mixture of both if you like and if your food processor is up to the challenge, or just buy some of the pretty little nuts to scatter over the top for serving, I won't mind.
I'm also using a (rather violently coloured) rose syrup I bought at my local Indian Supermarket. There is a really nice Alchemy rose syrup available at some places, or just make a syrup of equal quantities castor sugar and water boiled together and reduced slightly, before adding a tablespoon- or to taste- of rosewater or rose essence.
Pistachio and Rose Syrup Cake
250g Almond meal
200g Pistachio meal
1/2 cup GF Flour
250g Butter
1 cup Sugar
4 Eggs
3/4 cup lactose free Yoghurt
2 tsp gf Baking powder
Rosehip Jam, if desired
200ml Rose Syrup
Cream butter and sugar together until really nice and fluffy.
Add in eggs once at a time until well combined.
Mix together the nut meals, flour,and baking powder and then mix into the egg mix together with the yoghurt. Isn't it a pretty colour?
Put half the mixture into a lined baking tin, then dot with the jam.
Cover with the rest of the mixture, and smooth over the top.
Bake for 2 hours at 150*c. I had a tray underneath my springform tin, and I found that a couple of tablespoons of oil leached out of my cake during cooking. I would put this down to the fresh nut meal, as I've never had this problem before.
While fresh out the oven, pour the syrup over, cover and let cool in tin. If you look closely dear Readers, you might notice the little holes I stabbed in my cake to help it soak up the syrup. I wish I hadn't done that in the end as it didn't look pretty and I don't think it was necessary in the first place, so learn from my mistakes and keep your cake pretty.
I sprinkled my cake with icing sugar to hide it's little blemishes, and decorated it with whole dried rosebuds, aren't they cute? I also served it with some more yoghurt rather that cream as the slight tart note was the perfect match to the sweet syrup.
The pistachio meal made a really nice change from just straight almond, but I think it would taste nearly as nice without it, funnily enough the jam too. Rosehip jam isn't strongly flavoured so if I add it again I'll mix some rose water/essence through it to oomph it up a bit.
I feel quite exotic with my Pistachio Rose Syrup Cake sitting on my counter, and I think it looks just as nice as a bunch of real roses too!
So Dear Readers, would you rather flowers or cake on Your kitchen counter?
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