In this episode, we tap into ancient wisdom to share a recipe for love—no matter how you define it. Join us for a taste of something beautiful and with substance.
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Feed Your Fire Podcast Episode Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Feed Your Fire. I'm your host, Kim Baker. Love is in the air, and that's not just because we're rolling off the Super Bowl with Bad Bunny. It's because we need more of it, and we've chosen to be a source of it. We don't just want to receive it, we want to propagate it. So today we're preparing a Persian love cake, a legendary recipe that was developed specifically to evoke the spirit of love.
I could imagine myself as a young child sitting in the kitchen in the house that I grew up in. It had this strawberry wallpaper, and there were copper pots all along the wall. But it had this white stucco ceiling with dark wood beams. And I would often snack on these pistachio nuts, the red kind that would leave the residue on your fingertips. I loved eggplant and pomegranates. And it seems very clear to me now that in another life, I was a Persian princess. In all of these years, I've been finding my way back to that source.
It was in that very kitchen that I first learned about love. Despite all of my family's faults, there was a warmth that emanated from that kitchen that extended well beyond the stove. And even though those storylines in our family grew like the branches on a tree, we always had those roots. And it's from that very place of origin that we're spreading seeds today.
According to the legend, today's recipe, the Persian love cake, was developed by a woman that wanted this prince to fall in love with her. What I absolutely love about the legend of this cake is that there are two endings. In one version, the prince eats the cake and instantly falls in love with her. And in the second, he rejects her and she eats the cake herself. And I thought, what a great set of alternatives that is. Each one of those versions representing a different definition of love.
If you think about all the languages that exist in the world, and all of the contexts in which love is used, there are tens of thousands of definitions of it. It's this incredibly powerful concept, and yet it's so difficult to define. It's universal and yet individualistic. It's something that you feel and something that you do.
I've met people along my life's journey whose definition of love was wildly different than my own. And I've also seen my own definition evolve and become more complex and rich. How would you define it?
In our bodies, love is expressed as part of a biological system. But in our spirit, it's so much more than that. Being as we're tapping into the spirit of ancient Persian lore and wisdom, I started digging in to the teachings of Rumi, and I was both shocked and delighted to learn that Rumi used cooking and fire as metaphors for love. Could this be any more on brand?
According to Rumi, our heart cooks or matures as it encounters the trials of life. And that that transformation is actually the goal of life. And it's only through this fire that we connect with something divine. And what's really interesting about that in the context of the world that we're living in, is that even though it feels fraught, it's an opportunity to tap into something much more profound and sacred.
What if we could use the angst and tragedy around us to catalyze something bigger, something within ourselves, and something with one another. It's with that in mind that I offer you today a slice of this Persian love cake, which I've been told by a very credible source, is extremely authentic.
Now, this recipe has a few steps to it, but it's not difficult. You will probably need to plan ahead so that you can get a few of these key ingredients off of Amazon. But I promise you, it's worth that step. Now, the first thing we're going to do is pre-heat our oven to 350 degrees. And we're going to grease our pan. Now, I actually am going to make these into cupcakes, because they're really cute and very shareable. But feel free, as an alternative, to use like a nine inch round pan.
In a medium bowl, I'm going to combine my dry ingredients. I'm going to take a cup of flour and two cups of almond flour, along with about three quarter teaspoon of ground cardamom, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a half a teaspoon of baking soda, along with a pinch of salt. And I'm just going to stir that all up, and then set it aside.
Then in a standing mixer with a paddle attachment, I'm going to combine a cup of sugar with the zest of one lemon and one orange. Just beat that up for a minute on like a medium speed, just so those oils could be released from the zest. Add a cup of softened butter, and beat that really well for a couple minutes.
Then add in three eggs one at a time, really letting that egg incorporate. Then we're going to add in a cup of plain Greek yogurt, and a tablespoon of orange blossom water. You can certainly use orange juice if that's all you have, but they do taste kind of different.
The orange blossom water has this interesting floral fragrance, and it's a bit lighter. The mixture will be kind of thin at this point. Remove it from the stand.
Add in the dry ingredients, and just kind of gently incorporate them in. You don't want to be really rigorous with your stirring. Just gently kind of fold it together.
Then add the batter to either your cupcake tins or your cake pan. The cupcakes will take about 15 minutes to cook, and a cake will take about double that. Remove it from the oven, and while it's still warm, we're going to take a small saucepan, and we're going to heat up a quarter cup of sugar with the juice of one lemon, and three-quarter teaspoons of rose water.
I would definitely use a Middle Eastern brand of rose water. This stuff is very strong, and I have a bottle of this wad that's a European brand that I have never used because it's almost unpalatable. You'll heat the saucepan for a minute, and the sugar will dissolve, and then you can take a fork or a toothpick and poke some holes into your cupcakes or cake, and just drizzle the syrup on.
It will sort of penetrate the cake and keep everything really moist. Once the cake is cool, we're gonna add a very simple glaze on top. This time, we're gonna use powdered sugar. We're gonna take a cup of powdered sugar, mix it with the juice of a lemon, and then three quarters of a teaspoon of that rose water again. I thinned mine just a little with about a teaspoon of water. Stir it up, and then drizzle it on top of the cake. Then add some chopped pistachios and some edible dried rose petals. Go for the pistachios that are green and not dyed red. And together with those rose petals, create this beautiful speckle of coloring.
And whether or not you're a Persian princess reincarnated, you will definitely fall in love with this cake. The almond flour and yogurt give the cake a really interesting texture. The cardamom, the lemon, the orange, and the rose just come together as this beautiful bouquet.
And what could be more apropos than rose petals as we approach Valentine's Day? Culturally, they symbolize love. And with this recipe, we're actually consuming that, nourishing our own bodies and those who we share it with from that symbolism and the work of our hands.
In cultures across the world, rose petals can symbol a spiritual offering, tying us back to Rumi's teachings. And those chopped pistachios speckled on top transport us back to that kitchen where I grew up, grounding us in something safe and warm. And it seems, then, that this recipe is indeed magical.
Whether or not you believe in its original legend, what if the cake represents the most beautiful version of ourselves that we could become? What if that is, in fact, what it means to love—to emanate that, to share it, to consume it? What if that's the source of all other definitions of love, sitting right there in the palm of our hand, like this cupcake, waiting to be enjoyed?
Until our next episode, I say so long. Feed your fire, where food nourishes growth.