While we’re all gearing up for an Easter feast under a full harvest moon this week, I sidestepped into a midweek birthday. Just a quick deviation from the run into egg hunting and hot cross bun toasting, and a little moment set aside from every other day to cram all my other favourite things into 24 hours. It’s not hard to have a happy birthday when all you want is a pony ride and there’s a lovely brown thoroughbred friend waiting in the stable. So that was how the day started; a beautiful ride on a sunny Autumn morning. Bit of yoga. Pot of tea. Unwrapping of cedar trees. And then a cake made by my beloved.
We had been lucky enough to have our Farmer’s market stall next door to the freshest of fresh raspberries this week, so they had to be part of things, and where there’s raspberries there should be roses, so fresh petals and rosewater went into the mix, with a lining of rose geranium leaves, and pulled together a rather pretty cake for a birthday tea party that afternoon.
Raspberry & Rose Tea Cake
makes 1 x 22cm very dense cake
2 tbsp flax meal in 6 tbsp water, mixed to a slurry
1/4 cup organic honey
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp aluminium free baking powder
3 cups organic almond meal
1 packed cup organic rose petals
1 punnet organic raspberries
1 tsp rosewater
250g coconut yoghurt
4 fresh rose geranium leaves, optional
To make the cake:
Pre heat the oven to 160C and prepare a 22cm springform cake tin. Lay rose geranium leaves in the bottom if you have some on hand.
Mix the flax meal slurry, honey, rosewater and vanilla bean paste together with the yoghurt. Add the almond meal and baking powder and stir to incorporate, then gently stir in half the punnet of raspberries and half the cup of rose petals (reserving the other halves for the top of the cake).
Pour into the cake tin and bake for approximately 40-45 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack to cool completely.
Decorate with fresh raspberries and rose petals and serve with a pot of freshly brewed tea and “Happy Birthday” where necessary.
