I’m a lazy baker sometimes. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to bust out the stand mixer, pull out a bunch of different ingredients, and make deliciousness happen. I just want deliciousness to…happen. Those days I go to Sofra bakery and chow down on some desserts. But on the days I don’t mind putting in a small amount of work sans stand mixer, I go for this cake.

It’s easy, it’s gluten free, you can cut the sugar in half and still have it taste delicious, and it’s impressive. It’s got a crunchy base, and smooth cake top layer.

The original name of this is Persian Love Cake, but as a rule when a food has an ethnic name in it and I’m not sure of the origin, I don’t use that name in my post titles because I’m honestly not sure if it’s a term from the country/culture, if it was appropriated, or if it is straight up offensive, so I changed the name here to just Love Cake. It’s still pretty and doesn’t lose anything.

Try making this cake, it’s delicious, it’s easy, and sure to wow.

Tips

1. Want low sugar? Cut the sugar in half, use 200 grams total, instead of 400 grams. Still tastes delicious.
2. Hate nutmeg? Leave it out, add in melted chocolate and butter. Or add cinnamon. Or add cardamom. Or rose water.
3. Make this cake the night before you want to serve it. It tastes better cold and once it’s been in the fridge for about 6 hours. Frost it just before you serve it.
4. Don’t have frosting bags, but do have piping tips? Use a giant plastic bag to pipe out your mascarpone cream. Don’t have either? Use an offset spatula to spread an even layer on the top.

Orange Blossom and Nutmeg Love Cake
Modified from ButterBaking

Cake
350 grams almond meal/flour
200 grams white sugar
200 grams brown sugar
120 grams butter, softened
2 eggs
250 grams yogurt
pinch of salt
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 vanilla bean split, seeded
1 tbsp orange blossom water

Mascarpone Cream
150 grams mascarpone cream
150 grams heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp sugar
1.5 tbsp orange blossom water

Decorative

Pistachios
Raspberries
Star piping tip

Preheat oven to 350F. Line the bottom of a spring form pan with baking paper and butter the pan well. Set aside. In a bowl mix together the almond meal, sugars, and butter. Mix together with your hands until it’s crumbly. Press half of this into the bottom of your baking pan to form the base crust. To the remaining almond meal, mix in the yogurt, eggs, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla. Mix well. Pour on top of crust. Baked for 45 minutes. Pull out, allow to cool completely before removing springform ring, or before frosting.

While it’s cooling, make the mascarpone cream. Mix together the mascarpone, heavy whipping cream, orange blossom water, and sugar into a bowl, and mix together using a whisk until it comes together and forms as a spreadable cream. Put cream into a ziplock bag/pipping bag with attached star piping tip if you have it. Put it in the fridge.

When everything is completely cooled, remove the springform ring from around the cake. Squeeze out some of the mascarpone cream on the cake, and spread it out using a knife to form a thin top layer. Then pipe out a pretty pattern. I did a pattern of star-dollops in concentric circles, starting from the edge, and when I got to the middle, I put in fresh raspberries, and piped excess mascarpone cream to fill in any gaps in the raspberries, and topped with some pistachios.

It keeps in the fridge for up to 4 days!