Rose Pistachio Cacen Ffenest Window Cake Food

PISTACHIO AND ROSE WATER SEMOLINA CAKE

Steps:

• Heat oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit/100 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and grease a 9-inch/23-centimeter round springform pan and line with parchment paper.
• Make the candied rose petals, if desired: Whisk egg white by hand until frothy. Then, using a small pastry brush or paintbrush, very lightly paint both sides of each petal with egg white; do this in a few small batches, brushing and then sprinkling the sugar lightly over both sides of each petal. Shake off excess sugar and lay petals on the lined baking sheet. Place in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes, until dry and crunchy, then set aside to cool.
• Make the cake: Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius.
• Combine pistachios and cardamom in a food processor. Process until the nuts are finely ground, then transfer to a bowl. Add almond meal, semolina, baking powder and salt. Mix together and set aside.
• Place butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until fully combined, but take care not to overwork it; you don't want to incorporate a lot of air into the mixture. With the machine still running, slowly add eggs, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times and making sure that each batch is fully incorporated before adding the next. The mixture will curdle once the eggs are added, but don't worry; this will not affect the end result.
• Remove the bowl from the machine and add the dry ingredients, folding them in by hand and, again, taking care not to overmix. Next fold in lemon zest, lemon juice, rose water and vanilla extract and scrape the batter into the pan. Level with an offset spatula and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean but oily.
• While the cake is in the oven, make the rose cream: Place all the ingredients for the cream in a bowl and whisk to beat everything together for about 2 minutes, until thick. Keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
• Make the rose syrup: About 10 minutes before the cake comes out of the oven (you want the syrup to be warm when the cake is ready), place all the ingredients for the syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring so that the sugar dissolves, then remove from the heat. Don't worry that the consistency is thinner than you might expect; this is how it should be.
• As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, drizzle all of the syrup over the top. It is a lot of syrup, but don't lose your nerve - the cake can take it! Sprinkle with finely chopped pistachios and set the cake aside in its pan to come to room temperature. Remove from pan and scatter rose petals over the cake. Serve immediately, with a generous spoonful of rose cream alongside. (The cake keeps well for up to 5 days in an airtight container. The rose petals should be sprinkled over just before serving.)

ROSE & PISTACHIO CACEN FFENEST ('WINDOW CAKE')

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter a 20cm square tin. Cut a sheet of non-stick baking parchment into a 40 x 20cm rectangle. Fold in half, so the short ends meet, then lower into the middle of the tin, ensuring the fold sticks up to divide the tin into two equal parts, each measuring 20 x 10cm. The parchment should overhang a little on two sides.
• Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer or in a bowl using an electric whisk for 5 mins until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent curdling. Carefully fold in the rest of the flour using a metal spoon.
• Scrape half the cake mixture into a separate bowl. Add the ground pistachios to one of the bowls along with the green food colouring and 1-2 tbsp milk and mix to combine. The mixture should form a dropping consistency. If it is too stiff, add a drop more milk. Add the ground almonds to the other bowl of mixture along with 1-2 tbsp milk, the pink food colouring and rose essence (don't add more than ¼ tsp or the rose flavour will be overpowering). The pink mixture should be the same consistency as the green.
• Pour the different mixtures into the different sections of the cake tin, and level the tops using the back of a spoon. Bake for 25-30 mins until a skewer inserted in the middle of each cake comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before lifting out of the tin using the baking parchment.
• Level the tops of the two cakes using a serrated knife and trim the edges so that both are the same size. Slice both cakes in half lengthways to give you two long pieces of pink cake and two of green.
• Spread apricot jam along the length of a green piece and a pink, then stick them together. Spread more apricot jam on top of them, and on one long side of each of the remaining pieces. Place the green piece on top of the pink and the pink on top of the green, again using the jam as glue. Brush the top of the cake with more jam.
• Sprinkle icing sugar onto a clean work surface and roll out the marzipan into a rectangle large enough to enclose the cake (around 20 x 35 cm). Use the rolling pin to lift away the marzipan, then brush away the icing sugar and sprinkle the caster sugar over your work surface. Lay the marzipan on top of the caster sugar with one of the longer ends closest to you.
• Carefully place the cake, jam-side down, into the middle of the marzipan, sitting lengthways, and brush the sides and top with more jam. Fold the marzipan around the cake, trimming the longer edges if you need to. Pinch the edges of the marzipan together and smooth using a knife. Tidy each end by cutting away a thin slice. Carefully turn the cake the right way up onto a serving plate and decorate with pistachios and rose petals, if using.