Rose and Cardamom Cake for Valentine’s Day

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Rose is an interesting flavor to bake with.  Too much and it will taste like fancy soap, too little and you’ll barely notice it.  My recipe for Rose and Cardamom Cake perfectly pairs the right amount of rose water with a little kick of spice in a classic yellow cake.  It’s a fun, new cake flavor that you are going to love!

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Floral Fantasies

Ever since I made the rose buttercream to fill my Strawberry, Champagne, and Rose Macarons, I’ve been craving more florals in my baking life.  This led me to whip up these Lavender & Lemon Cupcakes for a family birthday party. But I wasn’t done with rose just yet.

Ya see, I had a ton of leftover rose buttercream lounging in my freezer.  And then I ended up with some vanilla Italian meringue buttercream sittin’ next to it.  Rose and cardamom are a classic combination, so I decided to throw together my leftover frosting with cardamom cake and indulge in my floral fantasies.

Cardamom Cake

For the base of my cake, I figured a good yellow cake would have plenty of flavor and pair nicely with the rose and vanilla frostings.  Of course, I used the recipe from my Coffee Cake Layer Cake because it’s a proven favorite. But this time I used vanilla bean paste to add to the flecks in the batter.

My next issue was cardamom.  For a Rose and Cardamom Cake, I want you to see and taste cardamom, but I don’t want to smack you in the face with it, ya know?  I went with a single teaspoon of cardamom and I’m happy with the balance of flavors. If you fan girl for cardamom like I do, check out my Cardamom Coffee Braid and my Strassburger Cookies.

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Rose and Cardamom Cake Blunder

This cake turned out almost perfect, except for one strange blunder.  Every cake layer had two different textures.  The top was soft and fluffy, like perfect cake.  Then a very distinct change of texture to a dense cake.  Still tasty, but it looked weird!  Especially since there was such a clear line between the two textures in every layer.

You know when this happens, I need to figure out what went wrong.  I’ve made this yellow cake many times and I’ve never had it flop.  Heck!  I’ve never seen any cake do this!  So I asked all of my baking gurus that I know, including the members of the Sweet Arts Guild.  The best I can figure, is I did not scrape the bowl down enough.  I’ll remember next time.  Blunders happen!

Marbled Frosting

The vanilla frosting is completely optional for this Rose and Cardamom Cake.  I used it to create a beautiful marbled effect and to keep each bite interesting.  I smooth my cakes a lot in the frosting process, so it’s important not to slap all of your colors on at once.  

After a vanilla crumb coat, I added a bit of vanilla frosting up the sides of my piping bag and filled it up with rose frosting.  This gave my base layer a tiny bit of marbling, but mostly a pink finish. As I was nearly done frosting and smoothing, I began filling in gaps with vanilla frosting and adding touches to any overly pink areas. After a few more passes with my bench scraper, I had a soft marbled effect.

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Wafer Paper Flowers

In February, the Sweet Arts Guild tackled wafer paper flowers!  As always, I never planned on learning how to use wafer paper and I was stunned by what I was able to accomplish.  Which is a good thing, because I am now the proud owner of about 96 sheets of wafer paper…

I will give you all of my tips and tricks in a future post dedicated to this easy technique.  It was a perfect way to decorate my Rose and Cardamom Cake! Wafer paper is edible and easy to work with.  Check out my Simple Wafer Paper Rose Tutorial or my Wafer Paper Ranunculus Tutorial.  If you’d like to see how I made gum paste peonies, check that tutorial out here.

Touch of Gold

After I made nearly a dozen wafer paper flowers, I just couldn’t stop.  First I colored some of them, then I decided they needed just a light trim of gold.  That then turned into painting some centers gold and adding gold flare just about everywhere.

So, naturally, I had to add gold to the cake!  I used the same gold leaf on this Rose and Cardamom Cake that I used to decorate my rose filled macarons.  It helps to have a very firm cake. Just use a dry paint brush to lift the gold leaf up and onto the cake. There is enough moisture in the frosting to adhere without water.  

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Find Time to Bake

Recently, I wrote about my best tips to find time to bake.  If you wish you could bake more, I highly recommend checking it out!  This cake is a perfect example of how I manage to pull off baking every week.  I saved my leftover frostings and only needed to make the actual cardamom cake.

Now, I seriously doubt that you also have half batches of rose and vanilla frostings in your freezer.  That’s okay. Just make one batch of frosting and split it into rose and vanilla. And here’s a crazy thought… try throwing a dash of cardamom into the vanilla frosting.  It just came to me and I bet that would be delicious!

Enjoy!

With my Rose and Cardamom Cake, you’ll enjoy the tantalizing combination of florals and spice.  I hope you enjoy this fun, new cake flavor as much as I did! If you’d like to see more, follow Bakes & Blunders on Instagram.  Don’t forget to say hi!

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Rose and Cardamom Cake

Cardamom spiced cake and fluffy rose buttercream make this one unique flavor combination.

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Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Birthday, Cake, Frosting, Rose

Prep Time 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes minutes

Assembly Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 2 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Servings 16 servings

Calories 545kcal

Author Colleen

Ingredients

Cardamom Cake

• 4 eggs room temperature
• 1/2 cup whole milk room temperature
• 2 tsps vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
• 7 oz cake flour sifted (1 3/4 cups)
• 10 1/2 oz sugar (1 1/2 cups)
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 16 Tbsps unsalted butter cut into 16 pieces, soft, but still cool (2 sticks)

Easy Rose Buttercream

• 4 oz pasteurized egg whites
• 16 oz powdered sugar sifted
• 16 oz unsalted butter softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp rose water
• ¼ tsp salt scant
• Pink food gel

Instructions

Cardamom Cake

• Preheat the oven to 350℉. Spray three 6 inch cake pans lightly with Baker's Joy, line with parchment rounds, and wrap with cake strips. Set aside.
• In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cardamom. Mix the dry ingredients on the lowest setting until combined, about 30 seconds.
• With the stand mixer still on the lowest speed, add the butter one piece at a time, waiting a few seconds between additions. Mix until the butter and flour begin to clump together, about 30-40 seconds after the last piece of butter is added.
• Add 1 cup of the egg mixture with the mixer on low and beat for 5- 10 seconds to incorporate. Bump the speed up to medium- high and beat until light and fluffy, about a minute.
• Add the remaining egg mixture in a slow, steady stream down the edge of the bowl. If you hit the paddle, it will make a mess. It should take about 30 seconds to add this remaining mixture.
• Stop the stand mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat again at medium- high speed for about 15 seconds to thoroughly combine. The mixture may look slightly curdled.
• Divide the batter evenly among the cake pans. Use an offset spatula to smooth out the batter. Bake for 30- 35 minutes or until the cakes spring back when you touch them and pull away from the pan.
• Cool in their pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Make sure they are facing right side up. Cool completely before frosting and assembly.

Easy Rose Buttercream

• Place the egg whites and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on high for 5 minutes.
• Add the butter about a tablespoon at a time, mixing well between additions. Once all of the butter has been combined, whisk on high for 8- 10 minutes.
• Switch to a paddle attachment and add the vanilla, rose water, salt, and pink food gel. Beat on medium- low for 3- 5 minutes, or until thoroughly combined. (If making a double batch, beat on low for 10 minutes to knock out extra air.)

Assembly

• Smooth a small dollop of buttercream onto a 6 inch cake board. Add the first layer and top with a layer of frosting. Repeat with the second layer. Repeat with the third, but place this one upside down for a perfectly smooth top.
• Apply a crumb coat with white and pink buttercream in the piping bag, smoothing the sides. Chill for 20 minutes.
• Apply a final coat of pink buttercream. When the frosting is nearly completely smooth, fill in gaps or overly pink areas with white frosting. Smooth with a hot (metal) bench scraper. Chill for 30 minutes.
• Wrap a piece of ribbon around the base of the cake to hide the board. Use a piece of tape or a pin to stick the ribbon together in the back.
• Add wafer paper flowers to cake by applying a dab of leftover frosting to the base of the flower. Gently, but firmly, press the flower onto the cold cake. Finish with touches of gold leaf.

Notes

• If you'd like the watercolor effect, remove some of the buttercream before adding the food gel.  Read the post for tips on getting the look.

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