Sri Lankan love cake

Name: Sri Lankan love cake
Yield: Serves 8 or more
Cuisine: Sri Lankan
Ingredients: ½–1 tablespoon rose water; 2½ tablespoons honey; Finely grated zest of a lime; 75 g (2½ oz) cashew nuts; 10 green cardamom pods, seeds ground; 115 g (4 oz) fine semolina; ¼ teaspoon ground clove; ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt; 90 g (⅓ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 225 g (8 oz) caster sugar; 4 eggs, at room temperature

Preparation info

Serves
8

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Whisper of Cardamom

By Eleanor Ford

Published 2024

About

Cashew nuts, semolina, rose water and spices combine to make a cake that is sweet, fragrant and fudgy like no other. This recipe is inspired by, but is not quite, a traditional Sri Lankan love cake. I have omitted the preserved pumpkin and simplified the method so it isn’t a labour of love, but still utterly lovely to eat.

Ingredients

75 g (2½ oz) cashew nuts
115 g (4

Method

Use a food processor to grind the cashew nuts to a gritty sand. Toast the semolina in a dry frying pan over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it takes on a slight tinge of nutty brown. Meanwhile, measure the spices and salt into a bowl with the ground nuts. Mix in the toasted semolina.

Line the base and sides of a 20