Rosewater Cake

Until this year, I'd never heard of Galentine's Day.  I didn't watch Parks and Recreation.  The show may be gone, but the V-day version of Friendsgiving has blossomed until there's even merchandise for it.  We're mostly ladies at work, so I figured this would be a decent celebration.

As for the flavor of the cake, I stole the inspiration from someone at work.  A Google search produced a few variations of cakes flavored with rosewater.  I decided on the one from Chelsweets, but cut the recipe in half so I wouldn't end up with enough batter for a 4-layer 8" cake.  I appreciate the trend in tall cakes, but that is huge.  This is a basic layer cake recipe with floral notes, using the reverse-creaming method.  We'll go into a different recipe at a later date; it's already bookmarked.  I'm also posting less sugar than I used.  The cake was far too sweet, and even sparkled slightly in the oven.

For the rosewater, I went to the Middle-Eastern grocery store near my work.  The prices are reasonable and you know they'll have what you want.  A 10 oz bottle produced by Sadaf was only $2.  Ten ounces will go a long way.  You can add it to cocktails, but I'll probably put some in my next batch of strawberry jam.  It can even be used as perfume.  The hard part was not also buying the other scented waters like orange blossom, thyme, and rosemary.  There were at least ten kinds of herbal and floral infusions, many of them less expensive than buying the item as a dry spice or extract.

The original plan was to make eight roses in my rose cupcake pan, and a small cake with the remainder.  I sprayed the hell out of that thing, and couldn't get any out intact.  One was close.

So the pan is going to be donated if I ever get it clean, and the cupcakes turned into cake pops.  (Beat together crumbled cake and enough frosting to make it look like cookie dough.)  I hadn't bought any candy coating and made little marbled dumplings with fondant instead.  I had bought the cupcake liners, which came with the heart toothpicks, to line the base of the roses when they were on a stick.  It's all about making it look like you meant to do that in the first place.

1-1/2 C + 2 Tb A.P. flour
1-1/4 C sugar
1-1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C (one stick) margarine
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C egg whites (carton is fine; you're not whipping them)
*3/4 C milk or buttermilk
1 Tb oil
2 tsp rosewater
pink gel food color (optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 350º.  Grease two 8" cake pans.

2.  Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Separately, whisk together vanilla, egg whites, milk, oil, and rosewater.

3.  In stand mixer with the paddle, stir margarine into flour mixture until coarse crumbs form.  Add liquids in three stages, scraping down the sides and bottom after each addition.  The first will look like cookie dough, the next like a thick batter, and the last a thin batter.  Beat on medium with a few drops of pink food coloring (optional) to make the batter pink.

4.  Portion batter into cake pans and bake 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  I used cake strips, and they were completely flat.  The failed cupcakes domed as much as I hoped they would.  They just didn't come out of the pan that way.  Grrr.

5.  Let cakes cool in pans 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely before icing.

Rosewater Icing

1/2 C unsalted butter
1/2 C shortening
1 lb powdered sugar
2 tsp rosewater
milk as needed
gel food coloring (optional)

1.  In stand mixer with paddle, beat shortening and butter until smooth.  Gradually add powdered sugar until incorporated.  Scrape sides regularly.

2.  Beat in rosewater first, then milk to desired consistency.  Add food color if desired and use to fill and decorate cake.

To make a heart-shaped cake, I followed the technique on a random YouTube video instead of buying a heart-shaped pan that will rarely be used again.  After seeing the new Lego movie, I realized they used Duplo hearts as the inspiration.

Fill layers first and chill to keep them from sliding around.  Mark a + through the center of the cake with a knife.  This will get covered by icing later.  It's very easy to make a right angle this way.  Cut the curves between two of the edge marks to make a straight line, then do the same on the other side to create the point.

Crumb coat the remaining balloon shape, then attach the removed pieces and crumb coat over those as well.  Cut a notch in the middle for the V shape at the top (snack).  Finish the crumb coat, smooth into the heart shape, and chill the cake to set the base coat.  I've decided that crumb-coating a cake is the hardest part of the whole process.  Once you get that right, even piped decorations aren't that difficult.

Finish cake with top coat and decorations.  If you get a heart-shaped cardboard, or even cut it yourself, do it out of the next size up.  I used an 8" for a 6" cake.  This one was staying at home, so I didn't bother to make the display company-perfect.

Makes one 2-layer 8" cake, about 12-16 cupcakes

Difficulty rating  :) for cake and frosting,  :-0 for frosting it heart-shaped