Baking Adventure: Ispahan Ombre Cake

I'm back in Singapore! Right after I arrive home and my aunt and mom requested that I bake a cake for them for our 'joint birthdays' since we all have birthdays in June, so I pulled this cake together! I wanted to take this cake as an opportunity to practice more decorating techniques, so I decided to go with ombre sides, and to practice my flower piping skills, I went with more roses on the top in a crescent shape.
I remember trying ispahan out for the very first time at UCL's Bake Off and I remember especially how popular it was with my friends who did try it, so I decided to try attempting the flavour combination out in a layer cake! For the uninitiated, ispahan is the flavour combination of rose, lychee and raspberry. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I have heard that the flavour combination was popularised by the famous Pierre Herme of macaron fame. Since it's lychee season here in Asia, I thought this would be the perfect cake to make to take advantage of that, however I totally underestimated how expensive raspberries can be in Singapore! So, no fresh raspberries on this cake, I had to make do with just regular raspberry jam to get that hint of raspberry in.

To pipe buttercream roses, you'll need a petal piping tip (mine is the Wilton 104, which is medium-small one), and if you're going to place them on a regular layer cake, I would recommend getting a piping nail too. Basically you'll pipe on the nail, and then use a pair of lifting scissors (or clean, regular scissors) to lift the flower from the nail and place it on the cake. You can pipe buttercream flowers directly onto cupcakes without using a piping nail, but for cupcakes I would recommend a petal tip larger than the 104, maybe the 123 and upwards.
Close up of the ombre sides
 To get the ombre sides, you need a round piping tip, preferably a large one. I got my round tip from a random store on Amazon, but it's the equivalent of a Wilton 1A. You'll need three different colours from the same colour family but from a light shade to the darkest shade. Then you'll need to pipe a round dot on the side and use a palette knife to flatten one side of the dot. Then place a darker colour below, and do the same. Continue doing this until you cover the entire side of the cake. When you get to the last dot, there won't be space to flatten it without messing up the other dots, so just leave it as a dot without flattening it.


What a nightmare it was to pipe the flowers! I was almost crying in frustration because the buttercream just kept melting in the insane heat in my kitchen, and I had to keep putting the piping bag in the freezer to cool the buttercream between each flower to make sure the flowers wouldn't melt, but as you can see, some of them still did. In the end, I gave up and started using my Wilton 1M Star tip to create swirly roses to fill up the blank spots. 


My mother insisted on putting more lychees on the top before we brought it over to the BBQ/celebration, hence the difference in design. Flowers also melted slightly in the scorching heat, unfortunately. :( I adapted my recipe from this one by Oh So Sweet Baker , but made a few changes of my own!

Ingredients: 
For the cake (makes enough for two 20 cm diameter layers)
  • 200 g butter, softened 
  • 5 eggs
  • 170 g yoghurt
  • 250 g white caster sugar 
  • 275 g self-raising flour
  • 80 g roughly chopped pistachios
  • 1 tsp baking soda 
  • 0.5 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp rose essence 
For first layer of frosting (to place in between layers)
  • 50 g butter
  • 275 g cream cheese
  • 175 g icing/powder sugar
For second layer of frosting (to decorate with), just use any basic buttercream but skip adding milk! 
For assembling 
  • Chopped pistachios
  • Fresh lychees
  • Raspberry jam 
Method:
For the cake:
  1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line your 20 cm diameter round cake tins with baking paper 
  2. Cream butter and sugar until soft and creamy, then add eggs one at a time, mixing to ensure eggs are fully incorporated.
  3. Add yoghurt and rose essence.
  4. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together in a separate, clean bowl, then add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
  5. Gently fold in pistachios.
  6. Bake for 20-35 minutes (this is highly dependent on your oven! The recipe said 20 minutes but with my oven it took longer, about 30-35 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  7. Leave to cool completely
For the frosting: 
  1. Cream butter until soft, then add cream cheese and then finally icing sugar, until powdered sugar is fully incorporated. If too soft, add more icing sugar.
Assembly:
  1. Level tops of cakes. Spread raspberry jam (heat it slightly in a microwave so its more watery and easier to apply) over first layer, then top with cream cheese frosting and add chopped pistachios. Place second layer on top.
  2. Put thin layer of cream cheese frosting over entire cake (just as a crumb layer)
  3. Carry out decorative aspects, aka ombre sides and buttercream flowers.
  4. Top with fresh lychees (if you have access to cheap raspberries, those too!)
And that's it! Let me know if you have any questions about the recipe/ method! Bye all x

This entry was posted on Monday, 22 June 2015 and is filed under ,,,,,,,,. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.

2 Responses to “Baking Adventure: Ispahan Ombre Cake”

  1. Bull And Rabbit12 November 2021 at 12:25

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  2. Amelia Rich17 May 2022 at 18:45

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