Persian Love Cake Minimuffins by Sherri McCalla
This recipe made approximately 75-100 minimuffins (I KNOW 75 but I did not make all the recipe into minimuffins so it is a guess for the final 25. If anyone makes this and gets an accurate mini muffin count, please let me know!) Recipe sourced from https://cardamomandtea.com
Ingredients
- Muffin Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ⅔ cups almond flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick butter softened at room temperature (recipe calls for unsalted-I used salted)
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 4 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons rosewater remember Rani’s simple syrup instructions? Might try other flavors…
- Mini muffin cups – I used the stand-alone kind and jammed them onto a cookie sheet.
- Icing and decoration Ingredients might want to double this if you like more icing than a thin drizzle
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons rosewater
- 1 Tablespoon lime juice
- Edible dried rosebuds or petals optional
- Ground raw pistachios optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- Fill your cookie sheet with minimuffin paper cups
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Break up any lumps with whisk or sift if any trouble with that. Set aside.
- Place butter (I had to further soften mine with a few seconds in the microwave as my room was cold!), sugar, lime zest, and cardamom in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or use a large mixing bowl with hand beaters. Beat at medium-high speed for about 2 minutes, until fluffier and completely homogenous.
- Crack the eggs into a container that has a pour spout. Run mixer at medium-high speed and add eggs 1 at a time with mixer running. Wait for each egg to be completely incorporated before adding the next. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and beat again to insure incorporation.
- Add buttermilk and rosewater and mix just enough to incorporate (careful with this it looks that overmixing might make a catastrophe here with the buttermilk). Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl once again.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, turn mixer to low, let mix just until smoothly incorporated. Do not overmix.
- Place about 1 Tablespoon batter into each mini muffin cup (I used a smallish cookie dough scoop) err on the side of too little-you don’t want the filling to rise over the sides).
- Bake for 24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in a center comes out cleanly. Watch your cakes as ovens vary and you don’t want charcoal briquets for your snack…
- While the cakes cool, make the icing by whisking together the powdered sugar, rosewater, and lime juice until completely smooth.
- Put icing into a sandwich type baggie, cut off a small portion of one corner and use as a piping bag (or use a piping bag). Pipe icing over the mini cakes as desired: pipe a small bit in the center of each cakelet, or drizzle artfully across all. Sprinkle with the ground pistachios and rose petals before the icing sets.
- Serve immediately. Store leftovers at room temperature for a day or two, and store anything you won’t eat in the near future in the freezer ASAP. Refrigeration will cause the cakes to taste stale.
Notes
Hints and tips for the icing ingredients:
“The Web” states that 48 mini muffins usually take about 3-4 cups of icing to frost the entire top surface. I only made the one batch per instructions and drizzled the icing. Next time I might double the recipe for better coverage. Raw pistachios are used for the bright green coloring-roasted pistachios are not so green. The raw pistachios can be found in Persian and South Asian markets, bulk food shops, and off Amazon. Grind the pistachios finely but don’t turn into pistachio butter! Shake the container and rake off the larger pieces for salads if they seem large to you, or just eat them out of hand. Edible roses come basically as buds or petals. Buying buds will give you a more crinkled end product that seems more like crepe paper and is very frilly (I used the rosebuds. I ordered these off Amazon along with the raw pistachios and the rosewater). To separate the petals from a bud, gently squeeze a rosebud at it’s base, pop off the stem, and discard any green bits. Continue gently squeezing it from the base to loosen the petals and release the black seeds. Let the seeds fall out of the base of the bud, and gently encourage the outer petals to fall away, stopping once you reach the beige/brown core. You can save the beige and brown cores for tea, or discard them (I included them, lol: I was in a hurry and they are kinda pricey). The seeds can be sprinkled on with the petals if you like the color contrast, or filter them out for more consistent pink and green coloring…Be sure the icing is thick enough to set and be opaque, but not so thick you can’t pour/drizzle it. Add more liquid ½ teaspoon at a time to thin it out or add powdered sugar 1 tablespoon at a time to thicken. Sherri’s Note:
I will finely chop some mint to sprinkle for bright green over a few cakes. This will change the flavor, but might be interesting. Also, I might try the roasted pistachios and see how much difference that is.
“The Web” states that 48 mini muffins usually take about 3-4 cups of icing to frost the entire top surface. I only made the one batch per instructions and drizzled the icing. Next time I might double the recipe for better coverage. Raw pistachios are used for the bright green coloring-roasted pistachios are not so green. The raw pistachios can be found in Persian and South Asian markets, bulk food shops, and off Amazon. Grind the pistachios finely but don’t turn into pistachio butter! Shake the container and rake off the larger pieces for salads if they seem large to you, or just eat them out of hand. Edible roses come basically as buds or petals. Buying buds will give you a more crinkled end product that seems more like crepe paper and is very frilly (I used the rosebuds. I ordered these off Amazon along with the raw pistachios and the rosewater). To separate the petals from a bud, gently squeeze a rosebud at it’s base, pop off the stem, and discard any green bits. Continue gently squeezing it from the base to loosen the petals and release the black seeds. Let the seeds fall out of the base of the bud, and gently encourage the outer petals to fall away, stopping once you reach the beige/brown core. You can save the beige and brown cores for tea, or discard them (I included them, lol: I was in a hurry and they are kinda pricey). The seeds can be sprinkled on with the petals if you like the color contrast, or filter them out for more consistent pink and green coloring…Be sure the icing is thick enough to set and be opaque, but not so thick you can’t pour/drizzle it. Add more liquid ½ teaspoon at a time to thin it out or add powdered sugar 1 tablespoon at a time to thicken. Sherri’s Note:
I will finely chop some mint to sprinkle for bright green over a few cakes. This will change the flavor, but might be interesting. Also, I might try the roasted pistachios and see how much difference that is.
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