Saffron, rhubarb and cardamom cake (vegan)

Hello weekend with this vegan saffron, cardamom, pistachio and rhubarb cake, decorated with palette knife buttercream flowers! 

One thing that definitely drives my baking choices is creativity and learning. I always want to try something new, test new techniques, and use flavors the are typically associated to savory foods too. Basically: I want to have fun with my bakes! I had fun creating the recipe for this FLUFFY (FLUFFIEST tbh) saffron sponge cake, filled with cardamom buttercream and rhubarb compotee, and with a crunchy pistachio praline. Those flavors are clearly meant to be together ❤  I also had fun making those buttercream flowers – using spatulas is so cool! I have always loved paintings made with a spatula and I have always been fascinated by this technique applied to cake, so I decide to try 🙂 Probably I shouldn’t have done this during one of the hottest moments of the year (at least here in the UK) – today it would have been a much cooler day to try this, but a few days ago I felt like I really need to have some fun smearing the walls of the kitchen with buttercream. 

Luckily some of the buttercream ended also on the cake 🙂

I love this recipe because even more than with others you can repurpose each of the components I use – each of those is really delicious and has a special flavour on its own:

• FLUFFY and moist saffron sponge 
• Crunchy pistachio praline 
• Rhubarb compotee 
• Cardamom buttercream frosting – colors made with @rawnice powders 

*Saffron sponge 

300g brown sugar  300

380g all purpose flour – 380

80g almond  flour – 80

4g baking powder – 4

4g baking soda -4

4g salt -4 

3g ground saffron

240g almond milk 

3 flax egg (7g flax seeds + 70g lemon juice)

160g rapeseed oil 

Sift the flours and the baking powder and soda together in a bowl, then add the brown sugar and the salt and saffron.  Add the zest and the flax egg, whisk well. Finally add the milk and the oil, combine with a balloon whisk and then use a spatula to check that you have scraped everything from the bottom of the bowl. 

Bake at 130C fan in a small baking tin (4-5″), I did it in 2 batches, and once in a larger one (6″). 

*Pistachio praline 

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp glucose syrup

1 tbsp sugar

Melt together, when brown add 100g pistachio, coarsely ground and some full (to decorate). 

Spread on baking paper or silpat and bake at 170C fan oven 15’. 

*Rhubarb compote

100g rhubarb puree (I oven baked it at 170C and blended it)

1 tsp agar agar 

40g sugar 

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Cook all the ingredients until the mixture reaches 80C, then set aside until ready to assemble.

Pipe on top of the cake insert and let set. 

*Cardamom buttercream frosting 

200g butter 

350g icing sugar

1 tbsp almond milk infused overnight with 20 crushed cardamom pods 

Pinch of salt 

Natural powders – I used rawnice pink pitaya, black carrot, blue spiraling, açaí and matcha 

Beat butter for 2 min. Add icing sugar and keep beating until fluffy. If necessary add 1 tbsp of almond milk. Divide and mix with colorful powders. Ice the cake and then decorate with buttercream flowers. 

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