Pink Persian Cake - Red Tractor October

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so the Red Tractor Recipe for October is pink - Pink Persian Cake.

The quote for the month comes from an unusual source - a former Liberal opposition leader:

This month's Pink Persian Cake would do very well on a cake stall, because it is absolutely devine.  It is nutty, moist (yeah, that's a good thing for cakes), pudding-like and all round just good to eat.

The cake also looks pretty because it is topped with pink, rose flavoured icing (in the recipe, it was also supposed to be decorated with a real pink rose, but I did not have one):

To make this pearl of a cake, you will need:

Cake

3 cups almond meal
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup raw sugar (I just used panela sugar)
125g butter
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 cup Greek style yoghurt
2 teaspoons grated nutmeg

Icing

120g butter
2 teaspoons rosewater
3 drops rose colouring
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius, and line and grease a 23cm springform pan.

Put the almond meal, sugars and butter in a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Divide the mixture in half, and put one half into the prepared cake tin, pressing down so that it covers the base evenly.

To the other half of the mixture, add the eggs, yoghurt and nutmeg, and mix well.  Pour this mixture over the base in the springform pan, and bake in the preheated oven for an hour or until cooked through.

Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin.  (This is important - I tried to remove the ring when the cake was still warm and it cracked open in a few places.)

For the icing, beat the butter in a stand mixer until pale and creamy.  Add the rosewater, rose colouring and 1 tablespoon of the icing sugar, then beat until combined.  Add the remaining icing sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time (or not!) and beat in until smooth.  

Spread the icing over the top of the cake and decorate as desired.