A PERSIAN STYLE ALMOND CAKE / QUARANTINE BAKING

We've been in quarantine for a month so far. It feels like all the world can talk about is Coronavirus, and it's consumed our daily routine in a huge way. When it seems like the world has turned to banana bread to cope, I have been scrolling through Pinterest in the hopes of finding something a little more inspiring to bake.

The recent sunshine we've been having and the smell of Summer evenings inspired me to bake something exotic, and Persian almond cake came to mind. Inspired by Yasmin Khan's Persian Love Cake, I saved recipes for over a dozen variations of Persian or Moroccan perfumed almond cakes. The spectrum ranged from Moroccan orange almond cake to Persian pistachio and rose and cardamom cake, with a multitude of variants in between, seemingly including the same ingredients. Since baking items are tricky to find in this lockdown, I adjusted the recipe based on what we had in our cupboards and what was available at the corner shop. Yes, that included buying roasted, salted pistachios which I had to shell and rinse at home!

The final cake is dense and syrupy, with a slightly spiced, nutty and fragrant taste. It looks like such a showstopper with the vibrant green pistachios for decoration and it instantly transports you to a Middle Eastern bazaar, miles from what any British supermarket cake could conjure up. There's nothing like food to transport you a thousand miles away, and this cake is the perfect treat for a summer evening. 

Here is the recipe! This would be perfect with rose water, orange blossom water or dried roses but alas the quarantine lifestyle does not permit those baking luxuries.