English Rose Cake Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9-inch cake pan.
• Cream sugar and butter for cake together in a bowl with an electric mixer. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in vanilla extract. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt separately, then add to mix, and cream together. Stir in half-and-half and rose water. Add a few drops of food coloring to turn pinkish (or whatever color you want). Pour into the prepared pan.
• Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Run a table knife around the edges to loosen. Invert carefully onto a serving plate or cooling rack. Let cool, about 30 minutes.
• While cake cools, beat confectioners' sugar and butter with an electric mixer on low speed, then increase speed to medium for about 3 minutes. Add half-and-half and vanilla extract and beat for 1 minute more. Add more half-and-half if frosting is too thick. Frost cooled cake.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and line the base and sides of 3 x 20cm round loose-bottomed cake tins with baking parchment. Tip all the ingredients for the cake into a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until well combined. Divide the mixture between the 3 cake tins and smooth the tops. Bake for 45 mins, swapping the tins halfway through so they cook evenly. Leave to cool for 10 mins in the tins, then remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
• To make the rose syrup, put the sugar in a pan with 100ml water and heat until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bubble for 1-2 mins, then remove from the heat. Add the rose water: start with 1 tsp and taste, as some varieties are much stronger than others - just be careful as the syrup will be really hot. Spoon half the syrup over the 3 sponges and set aside.
• Add 2 tbsp of the syrup to the raspberries and crush them with a fork. Push the raspberries through a sieve into a bowl and discard the seeds. Sift in the icing sugar and mix to a smooth icing. In a second bowl, add another 2 tbsp of the syrup and the vanilla to the cream and whisk until it holds soft peaks. Chill until needed.
• To assemble, place one cake, flat-side up, on a plate or cake stand, and top with half the cream and a third of the remaining raspberries (see tips, below). Sandwich another cake on top and add the remaining cream, another third of the raspberries, then the last cake. Smooth the raspberry icing over the top, letting it drizzle down the sides. To decorate, we used a mixture of rose petal pieces (available from cookshops or online), homemade crystallised rose petals (see step-by-step, above) and the reserved raspberries.

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.)