A Cake for Sarah: White Chocolate, Cardamon and Rosewater Cake

a cake for sarah

“cheers” my friend Sarah on a recent holiday to Baynuls-sur-Mer

The other night I made a surprise cake for my friend Sarah who is going to Mozambique for 6 weeks to volunteer with Iris Ministries, set up by Rolland and Heidi Baker. She’s going to two of their ministry bases, one in Pemba and the other in Muputu, to serve as a willing pair of hands. Giddy with excitement at the prospect of getting involved with the work out there, she’s not quite sure what’s in store. She leaves on Tuesday and I’m excited for her and the stories of her experiences that she’ll bring back with her.

Well, naturally I felt it was appropriate to mark the occasion with food, and I really wanted to make her a cake that was, a) personal to her b) I could decorate and c) a delicious new recipe. But suddenly (de repente!), I was overcome with all these mini moments of doubt when I forgot what flavours she liked and didn’t like. (I felt like such an awful friend!) After several hours of poring over Fiona Cairns and Nigella recipes, it got to the point that all I knew for sure was that – she likes chocolate. Especially white chocolate. So, I picked this White Chocolate, Cardamon and Rosewater sponge from Fiona Cairns, Bake and Decorate.

The story doesn’t stop there. I confess that I had many anxious thoughts ready to trip me up and stop me from baking this cake:

  1. The biggest, most glaring, thought that rang alarm bells in me, was – does Sarah like cardamon and rosewater..? Both are pretty strong, unusual flavours. And will the rest of the small group like it? Because if you don’t like either of those flavours, then I’m done for!
  2. Secondly there was a step involving a food processor and adding hot water to white chocolate to melt it… this is a new technique and I wasn’t sure whether my old food processor and I were up to the task.
  3. My lack of a real pestle and mortar to ‘grind the [cardamon seeds] into a powder’ (I do love Fiona’s writing).
  4. I have never ever made ganache before.

So there you go. This cake almost did not happen. However:

  1. Firstly, I had this vaguely reassuring feeling that Sarah has pretty much liked every flavour of cake that I’ve baked her. And my small group are happy to venture out and try new flavours.
  2. Then, I thought that I could only give it a go and see what happens with the white chocolate, food processor and hot water.
  3. And I improvised a pestle and mortar with the end of a rolling pin and my trusty small stainless steel pampered chef bowl. Then, it was Alex who did the hard work of bashing the cardamon seeds into a powder and sifting out the husks later.
  4. I love video tutorials!

Result:

white chocolate cardamon and rosewater cake

I didn’t tell you that I decorated the cake to look sort of like Mozambique. I don’t do decorating cakes. However, as I had to do something(!), I got this idea of using sweets to creating Mozambique from Jen, a friend of mine in my small group, because it is fun and colourful. Kind of what I hoped Sarah’s trip would be for her. (Whenever one of Jen’s funny, creative ‘face birthday cakes’ turn up in our small group, there is a lot of laughter. I wish I had some photos to illustrate how funny they are to you! “John, your face is delicious.”)

Later on, I put candles on it to mark Pemba and Muputu when we presented the cake to her at our church small group. By way of imagery, the candles also represented that she’d be a light where she was going. Corny isn’t it, I know!

When the cake came in with its lit candles, Sarah said, “but whose birthday is it?” and she made us all sing a song.

And what about the flavours and the cake? Well, I’d forgotten that she’d previously made a lime and cardamon cake so she was already a cardamon fan. So, she really liked the cake, as did everybody else. It truly is a delicious cake. Although 20 cardamon pods sound like a lot, I don’t think that their flavour was so overpowering that you couldn’t taste the white chocolate or the rosewater. I’m wondering when I can make this recipe again.

Now that the cake has been eaten and loved… I can let those stomach knots untie themselves as I wonder whether some of the anxiety around the cake was really to do with wondering, “How will I manage without Sarah for 6 weeks?

In the meantime, here’s Fiona Cairn’s white chocolate and cardamon sponge

Ingredients

  • 130g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
  • 20 green cardamon pods, deseeded* (see method 2.)
  • 170g self-raising flour, sifted to add lightness to the sponge
  • 100g white chocolate, chopped
  • 130g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line with baking paper, a 20cm cake tin. I used a 23cm cake tin and it was probably a bit too wide. I’ll use a 20cm next time, so that the ganache can be a bit thicker.

2. Deseed the cardamon pods using the point of a sharp knife. Empty out the seeds and grind them to a powder in a pestle and mortar. (Or as I improvised, a stainless steel bowl and the end of a rolling pin). Sift the cardamon powder in order to remove the husks that inevitably remain.

3. Well, my old food processor happily stood up to the challenge of this next bit. Place the chopped white chocolate and half of the caster sugar into the food processor and pulse for a few minutes, until it is as fine as possible. Then take 2 tbsp of hot water (important that its hot, not boiling, otherwise the white chocolate will seize up and go firm). Keep the processor going and add the hot water slowly (Fiona describes it as, ‘dribble it’) to the chocolate, until most of the chocolate has melted.

4. Add in the remaining sugar and butter to the food processor and process it so that it is well mixed. Finally, add in the eggs, ground cardamon, flour and vanilla extract and mix it well. The end result won’t be entirely smooth as there may be some white chocolate that hasn’t melted and manifests itself as little lumps. Don’t worry about it. The baking will sort it out.

5. Transfer the batter into the baking tin and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the cake tester comes out clean. Rest the cake in the tin for a few minutes, then turn it out to cool completely, onto a wire rack.

Then we move onto making a white chocolate ganache. Can I just say,

“This is the first time ever that I have made ganache!”

I was a bit anxious about it and even a year ago, I think that I would have been too scared to attempt a ganache. However, whilst I’ve been watching the Great British Bake Off, I’ve been inspired to try out new techniques. I still searched online to learn a bit more before I tried it and build my confidence. I’d like to say that this was fairly simple to do. But I’m not sure that my ganache looked entirely right. I think that I might have whisked it for too long.

Top Tip: Still feeling nervous about making ganache? I’d recommend watching this, to help ease your nerves. It is a really good video tutorialon making white chocolate ganache.

So, the ingredients for a white chocolate and rosewater ganache

  • 100g good quality white chocolate, finely chopped
  • 100ml double cream
  • 2tsp rosewater

Method:

1. Place the finely chopped white chocolate in a heat proof bowl.

2. Heat the double cream and the rosewater in a saucepan until it boils. You want it to be ‘scalding’. Then pour it into the heat proof bowl with the white chocolate.

3. Leave it for a about 30 seconds to begin the melting process, and then begin stirring the mixture gently so that the melting white chocolate and the hot cream are completely mixed together. Once done, leave it to cool completely, then pop it into the fridge to chill slightly.

4. Then take it out and whisk until it thickens.*

*This is where I think that I may have gone wrong. However, since then, I have wondered whether using a more expensive white chocolate would produce a better ganache, rather than Sainsbury Basic.

To finish off…

Fiona suggests that you split the cake into two layers, spread the ganache in the middle and sandwich the two layers together. I modified this to compensate for my poor decorating skills and needing to decorate this cake into something that resembled Mozambique.

On the day, I raced back home during my lunch break to decorate the cake. I spread the ganache on the top of the cake, as a frosting. Then I used haribo men and jelly tots to create a shape that resembled Mozambique, chilled it in the fridge for a few hours, while I went back to work and voila!

Sarah and Cake

Published by

Han-Na Cha

English Language Teacher, Academic and Personal Development Skills Trainer, Baker.

5 thoughts on “A Cake for Sarah: White Chocolate, Cardamon and Rosewater Cake”

  1. Off to buy the ingredients to make this for work as I failed to bring anything from my holiday.
    Not sure I’ll be creating a pattern on the top though – it might just get iced. 🙂

  2. I have to admit I failed to make it, the literature review took precedence.
    I’ll hopefully make it in a few weeks and let you know how it goes.

  3. Thanks Han-Na, this worked well even just with rosewater icing. Also the dark chocolate and corriander variation did too. (Seems orange flower water doesn’t taste nice and I didn’t have a substitute.)
    I took a lazy approach to grinding spice and used a grinder which may have resulted in slightly stronger than planned spices – but Paul and I thought they were good.
    We’ll see who’s brave enough to try them tomorrow in the office.

  4. I’m really intrigued by the coriander and chocolate cake. cAn you save a slice for me?

    Good point of feedback about how using a grinder results in stronger flavour. Thanks.

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