This is a love story....

Gila, the woman behind the famous Persian Love Cake kit that is taking Australia by storm, grew up in Iran with exotic ingredients like saffron and rosewater as her mum's pantry staples.

When Gila migrated to Australia, she found comfort in cooking home recipes for her friends and colleagues. She found herself baking Persian Love Cake frequently as it features all the signature aromas of home.

Persian Love Cake is made with almond meal, saffron, rosewater, and cardamom. It is decorated with rose petals or Persian fairy floss.

No wonder that Persian Love Cake was the most requested recipe by her colleagues and friends. They wanted to bake it for themselves and share the joy with their families.

"As much as we love it, it's too difficult...."

Despite everyone taking Gila's Persian Love Cake recipe and all the tips that came with it, rarely people baked the cake themselves. Their main excuse was that the ingredients are hard to find. Also, they didn’t want to stock up on exotic ingredients like rose petals and saffron that they occasionally use, not to mention they are expensive to purchase!

Gila is adamant to share the love.

“As much as I loved to bake for my friends, I wanted them to have the full experience. Because the process of baking this cake is part of the enchanting experience. So I started to prepack my cake mix with the decoration and send it to my friends as a gift for occasions like Christmas, birthdays and Mother’s Day.“ Says Gila in her interview.

“…The delight when they baked the cake by themselves was even more than when I used to bake it for them” She continues.

The lightbulb moment

That’s when Gila decided to share this delight with more people. She improved the packaging for the cake kit and offered it at Exotic Bazaar online store.

In this cake kit you will find the dry cake mix, icing mixture, a mini bottle of rosewater, and a pack of rose petal and pistachio garnish.

People loved it!

The uptake was amazing. Soon Exotic Bazaar’s Persian Love Cake became a favourite treat that many Australians baked for their family and surely enough they came back for more, and told their friends about it.

People started to bake and take the Persian Love Cake to their book clubs, birthdays, gatherings, work from office days, and many more occasions. They hosted bake offs with it, made it into cupcakes, heart shape, square, even pancakes!

“I am blown away by the creativity of our community!” Gila proudly announces.

Australia also loved the cute pink packaging of the cake kit and Gila’s Persian Love Cake became a go-to gift for Mother’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, Easter, and more.

There are difficulties... but we are blessed that Australia has an open heart

Of course, there were challenges along the way. Raising awareness is not an easy task even if you are selling a cake that everyone loves. Also, the ingredients in this cake are very high value which makes the cake sit on the more expensive side.

“The current financial climate doesn’t help” Gila adds. “But, luckily almost everyone who makes our Persian Love Cake, can’t stop themselves from taking a picture and sharing it on socials. This means we have so many proofs that this kit is worth it”.

The future is exciting

Gila is currently working on making the cake into a retail product that you can purchase from grocery stores, but for now she only sells her Persian Love Cake direct on Exotic Bazaar online store because as it is, they are struggling to keep up with the demand.

If you would like to try the enchanting experience of baking Gila’s Persian Love Cake, see the instruction recipe below.

P.s. Gila’s Persian Love Cake kit is on special for a limited time so grab yourself the bargain whilst it’s available!

 

Included in Exotic Bazaar Persian Love Cake Kit:

• Persian Love Cake Mix (Gluten Free Available) - 300g

• 1 x Mini Bottle of Rose Water - 15ml

• Icing Mix - 100g

• Pistachio, Almond & Edible Rose Petals Garnish - 17g

• Full Printed Recipe Instructios

Your Shopping List:

• 2x XL Free-Range Eggs

• 1 Cup Natural Yoghurt (Appox 200g)

• 160g Softened Butter

• 1 Cup Sugar

• A 20 cm Cake Tin

**For a vegan-friendly option you can replace the eggs with mashed banana or egg replacer and use coconut yoghurt inside of natural greek yoghurt. Please also read my recipe for Egg and Dairy Free Persian Love Cupcakes here.

How To Make The Persian Love Cake:

 

1- Preheat oven to 170C (160C fan-forced). Line the cake tin with baking paper.

2- Using an electric mixer cream the softened butter and sugar. Add the eggs one by one and beat. Add the yoghurt plus 2 tbsp water.

3- Add the Persian Love Cake mix and fold it to evenly mix (The batter will be thick).

4- Pour into the cake tin. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a chopstick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake completely cool down then decorate.

Decorate With Rosewater Icing & Edible Rose Petal Garnish:

Place the Icing Mix in a small bowl then add the rosewater provided little by little until dissolved. If the icing is too thick, add water or a few drops of lemon juice. Spread over the cake or divide between cupcakes (recipe here) then garnish with the provided rose petal garnish pack with slivered almonds & ground pistachios.

Each Persian Love Cake kit comes with a recipe card (which is also available to download here).

Top Tips: - For cream frosting, whip 250ml cream with the icing and rosewater. - For a two-layered cake divide the batter between two 20cm cake tins, reduce the baking time to 30 mins and layer with your choice of frosting. - If you have a silver colour cake tin, use that over black to achieve a lighter crust. -Bake the cake the night before and decorate just before serving for optimum flavour. - Store baked cake in an airtight container below 20C for up to a week. Or freeze.

The Persian Love Cake Baking Kit offers a unique gift for anyone who might love exotic flavours and the baking experience. For a full authentic experience checkout Exotic Bazaar hampers: The Middle Eastern Feast and Exotic Night.

Shop Hamper Range
Shop Saffron Persian Love Cake Baking Kit

Interested to know the story of Persian Love Cake?
The story of the Persian Love Cake originates long ago in Persia, where a woman has grown deeply in love with a Persian prince. Unfortunately, the prince did not reciprocate her love and to change her misfortunes she concocted a magical cake using saffron, rose water, rose petals, cardamom spice & pistachios. Whoever ate this magical love cake would then fall in love with her.
The next day the prince was due to travel far away to which he may never return. And here's where the story is divided and you must choose your ending:
Ending #1: The fairytale ending, where before the prince vacates, he eats her magical cake and of course falls in love with her and they live happily ever after.
Ending #2: The prince leaves without eating the cake and she eats the love cake herself, where she falls in love with herself and lives happily ever after.
I much prefer the second ending with the message of truly loving yourself and not craving the acceptance of others.