The Ispahan Cake is inspired by famous Parisian patissier Pierre Herme’s signature creation of the same name, the Ispahan Macaron, which features the exciting flavour combination of a rose-scented macaron with lychee and raspberry fillings. In rendering a cake version of the Ispahan flavours, I decided that the angel cake lent itself naturally to this transition. Like a macaron pastry, an angel cake is made predominantly from egg whites. The light airy texture of the angel cake also showcases the delicate flavours of rose and lychee well. For aesthetic effect, the cream frosting is tinted pink (even though it has no rose flavouring, only the cake does), as a nod to the pink Ispahan Macaron. Also, I love the clean white colour of the angel cake too much to add any colour to it! Everytime I bake this cake, I never manage to get a picture of a cut slice of cake in order to show how it looks inside, either because I am in a hurry to deliver it or we finish most of it before any decent photo-worthy slices are left. In any case, if you can employ your imagination a little, it is a 2-layered pristine white cake that is filled with soft pink frosting and raspberies. The contrast between the white and pink is just gorgeous and so girly. Which also explains why it is one of my Sugarbabe 1's top cake request.
The cake shown above was baked for a charity event called Hearts and Hands held at Seen at Dempsey in aid of autistic children (see seenatdempsey@blogspot.com). Hearts and Hands has a fantastic ongoing charity project where you can order delicious home-baked and totally chi-chi cakes from 2 fabulous home-bakers, and they will donate the entire proceeds to charity. If you are interested please email me for the order form.
bonjour! this cake looks simply divine - love the muted pink hue of the frosting that complements the bold reds of the rose petals and raspberries perfectly! :) i would love to try my hand at making this and your orange chiffon cake one with the sublime cointreau laced chocolate glaze - was wondering if you could let on on the recipes?
ReplyDeletecheers,
A
Hi A!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind comments. I will post the recipe for the Ispahan cake in the near future. I am still refining and adjusting the recipe and will give an update once I am happy with the result. As for the Dark chocolate orange chiffon cake, the recipe is from Rose Beranbaum (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Orange-Glow-Chiffon-Cake-105984). Unfortunately I forgot which recipe I used for the chocolate glaze! You may want to try this: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Double-Chocolate-Layer-Cake-101275
The only adjustment I would make is to add 2 tablespoons of orange liquor, and decrease the amount of heavy cream correspondingly by 2 tablespoons. I would also skip the sugar as I like the taste of dark chocolate.
Hope this helps!