Name: Cake Ispahan: Almond Pound Cake
Total time: 3 h
Yield: 12
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 162 g butter, softened; 110 g icing sugar; 170 g almond flour; 3 egg yolks; 1 whole egg; 80 g all-purpose flour; 3 egg whites; 37 g caster sugar; 25 g whole milk; 40 g rose syrup; 300 g fresh raspberries; 200 g white chocolate; 20 g grape seed oil; 30 g chopped dry raspberries

Last Updated on July 9, 2019 by Irina | Baking Like a Chef

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Cake Ispahan is an almond pound cake flavored with rose and raspberries. This moist and delicately scented loaf cake may seem sophisticated, but it is incredibly easy to make! Plus, I will give you the keys to succeed!

Cake with the poured white chocolate and dry raspberry glaze on a wire rack

Have you ever heard of French family desserts called Ispahan? It is a “clan” of 42 sweet treats created by the French chef Pierre Hermé: tart, choux, mille feuille, croissant, madeleine, macaron, sablé, tea, jam, nougat, caramel, etc. Once a year, in Pierre Hermé’s boutiques, there is a season of Fetish Ispahan which is a reason to over-eat rose/lychee/raspberry’s creations. So, if you plan a trip to Paris, experience all variations of Ispahan desserts in the City of Lights.

What are Ispahan Desserts?

Ispahan desserts are named after a famous Damask rose Ispahan. They are famous for their unique combination of rose sweetness, power of raspberry and floral note of lychee. Family dessert Ispahan has become Pierre Hermé’s obsession since 1987, and in 2013 he published a whole book fully dedicated to Ispahan desserts – “Pierre Hermé Ispahan”.

Cake with the white chocolate and dry raspberry glaze on a rack and a slice; bird view

Cake Ispahan is one of my favorite desserts that I have already baked multiple times. It seems a casual loaf cake from a first impression but its blend of rose with raspberry upgrades the cake to a romantic dessert. The cake is dense and moist due to fresh raspberries baked inside the cake. I especially love an inner architecture of the cake where raspberries are arranged in attractive pattern. Yes, the rose fragrant is exotic, but at the same time it is light and not overpowering. The right balance of ingredients forms a perfect match, a real treat!

Why This Cake Ispahan Recipe Works?

The batter holds fresh raspberries, preventing them from sinking to bottom of the cake.
Rose flavor and pale rose color of the cake Ispahan are due to added rose syrup; however, you can easily replace rose syrup with rose water.
The authentic cake decoration – crushed pink praline – gives additional crunchiness to the dessert.
Crystallized rose petals greatly contribute to the magic of the cake Ispahan.
The cake could be kept for 10 days in the fridge but take it out 2 hours before serving.

Cake with the white chocolate and dry raspberry glaze, two slices and chopped dry berries on a marble board

How to Decorate Cake Ispahan?

There is an authentic version of how to decorate the cake, but I also put my own touch in the cake finishing, trying to stay in the spirit of Ispanan.

Follow the chef’s recommendations and decorate the cake with crystallized rose petals and crushed pink praline which is red colored candied almonds. To crystallize untreated red rose petals, start two days in advance: delicately brush them with egg white, dust them with icing sugar and dry petals on parchment paper (in air) 2 days.
Pour the white chocolate and dry raspberry glaze over the cake.
Simply sprinkle top of the cake with rose icing sugar and decorate with fresh raspberries. To make rose icing sugar, blend equal parts of edible rose petals and caster sugar in a blender or food processor.

How to Make Cake Ispahan – Step by Step

Preheat oven to 180 C/355 F. Sift almond flour and icing sugar into a medium bowl and set aside. Sift all-purpose flour into another bowl and put aside as well.

To make the cake batter, beat softened butter and almond flour/sugar mixture 3 minutes, using an electric mixer. Add a whole egg with egg yolks (photo 1) and whisk 2 minutes. Then add milk mixed with rose syrup and beat 1 minute again (photo 2).

Photo 1: Butter/almond flour/sugar mixture in a bowl; Photo 2: A whole egg and egg yolks added to the preparation in a bowl — **PHOTO 1 PHOTO 2**

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites (not too firm), gradually adding caster sugar. Delicately add egg whites to the cake batter (photo 3), incorporating flour at the same time. Mix with a rubber spatula, starting from the center, from bottom to top (photo 4). Don’t over fold! It is better to under fold than over fold.

Photo 3: Beaten egg whites with the cake batter in a bowl; Photo 4: Ready cake batter in a bowl — **PHOTO 3 PHOTO 4**

Butter a 9” x 5” loaf pan and dust with flour. Garnish the cake pan with 1/3 of the almond-rose batter and smooth out. Arrange fresh raspberries away from the edges (photo 5). Cover raspberries with another 1/3 of the batter. Add berries again at a distance from the edges. Pour 1/3 of the remaining batter over fresh raspberries.

Lower the oven temperature to 150 C/300 F and bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until a knife can be inserted and removed cleanly without streaks of the batter (photo 6). Unmold the cake immediately after baking and allow to cool to room temperature.

Photo 5: Cake batter with arranged raspberries in a cake pan; Photo 6: Baked cake in a pan — **PHOTO 5 PHOTO 6**

To make dry raspberries, preheat oven to 90 C/195 F. Place fresh raspberries on parchment paper and bring them into the oven. Let them dry for 2 hours, stirring each 30 minutes. Then cool dry raspberries down and chop them into middle-sized pieces.

To make white chocolate and dry raspberry glaze, melt white chocolate in a microwave in 3 (15-second) intervals, stirring between each melt. Add grape seed oil and mix well. Let the glaze cool down to 30 C/86 F maximum, otherwise it will be too runny to stick to the surface of the cake. Finally add chopped dry raspberries and gently mix (photo 7).

To decorate the cake, transfer the dessert on a rack placed on top of a deep tray. Pour the glaze over the cake (photo 8).

Photo 7: White chocolate and dry raspberry glaze in a bowl; Photo 8: Cake on a rack with poured white chocolate and dry raspberry glaze — **PHOTO 7 PHOTO 8**

Important Tips to Make This Cake Ispahan

Make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature. Take the butter out of the fridge two hour before you start baking.
Replace 40 g rose syrup with 5 to 10 g rose water.
Avoid egg yolk or/and eggshells in the egg whites while breaking eggs. Slightly beat egg whites (not too firm).
Add a few drops of red food color to the batter to get slightly rose color of the cake; although, this touch of food coloring is optional.
Divide the cake batter into three parts to make equal layers of the batter and raspberries.
Use only fresh raspberries since the frozen ones are too watery to make the cake.
Preheat oven to 180 C/355 F and then LOWER heat to 150 C/300 F at the time of baking.

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