Rose and Honey Milk Cake

This Rose and Honey milk Cake is bound to make you popular with the fam! Super moist honey cake drenched with milk syrup and covered with a layer of cream, chopped cashews and rose buds. It’s dreamy, delicious and and worth all the praise that you get when you serve this.

What’s the Rose and Honey milk cake?

This Honey cake has all the rustic Persian flavors of nuts, rose water and honey. All the flavors are subtle and not overpowering at all. It’s made similar to three milk cakes or tres leches cakes. We first bake the honey cake, which has a nice golden color on top. Then we poke holes in it and drown it in some warm rose honey milk for an added layer of flavor and moisture. Topping it off with some whipped cream, crushed nuts and rose buds, for an added layer of texture and flavor.

THE ROSE AND HONEY CAKE – INGREDIENTS

The ingredients needed for the cake are fairly basic and simple, other than the addition of honey and rose water.

• The Cake – The cake needs two set of ingredients. The dry ingredients including all purpose flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. The wet ingredients including honey, eggs, milk, oil, white + brown sugar, rose water and vanilla essence. You can use any type of brown sugar / molasses here and skip the white altogether for more brown. But definitely don’t skip the brown sugar, it’s essential to the flavor.
• The Honey Milk syrup – The milk in this recipe is slightly different than the combo normally used in standard tres leches cakes. For this recipe you will need honey, brown sugar, whole milk, evaporated milk, table cream and rose water. You can use any cream available to you.
• The whipped cream – The topping includes whipped cream. I used regular heavy cream and whipped it up. I didn’t add any sweetener though, as a personal preference. But you can add some flavoring or color if you like. A few tablespoons of pink rose syrup would go so well with this recipe.
• Garnish – For this cake I went with salted grinded cashew nuts and rose buds because I love how that small amount of salt from the cashews give that little oomph to the dish. You can use any nut of your choice, like almonds, pistachios or walnuts. You can also decide if you want to use sliced nuts, ground nuts or chopped. OR You can also use a whole bunch of assorted nuts and take it to the next level! My cousin’s kids loved it with some chocolate shavings on it though, just saying.

Ingredient Alternatives

Ingredients	Diet Alternatives
Whole milk	Nut milks, soy milk or coconut milk for dairy free diet
All purpose flour	Whole wheat flour
Vegetable Oil	Coconut oil
Castor sugar (white)	Alternative sweeteners like xylitol etc can be used instead or increase the amount of brown sugar.
Whipping cream	Coconut whipping cream for Dairy free diet
Evaporated milk	1 cup milk powder + 1 cup water

How to make the Rose & Honey Milk Cake

The cake has 4 components

• The rose and honey cake
• The rose and honey milk
• The whipped cream topping
• Garnish

Baking the Honey Milk Cake – Step by Step

The cake in itself is super easy to whip up. You just need a whisk, an ovenproof dish of 13′ x 9′ inch and 2 bowls!

NOTE: You can also use a stand mix or an electric beater if
you prefer that over hand whisking.

You have to mix all the wet ingredients together like, eggs, sugar, honey, milk, oil, essence and rose water to make a nice honey colored liquid mix.

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Then you mix all the dry ingredients togethers, like salt, all purpose flour, baking soda and baking powder.

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AND that’s it! You pour the liquid mix into the dry ingredients and whisk to make a smooth cake batter.

Bake the cake for 25 mins at 175C. You’ll see a nice golden top when its done. Insert a knife or a toothpick in the centre to check if the cake is done. Take it out and start making the rose honey milk.

NOTE: You do not need to grease the tray if you are using a standard pyrex dish

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Making the ROSE AND HONEY MILK

We are going to pour this milk while the cake is still hot and not cooled completely. So once your cake is baked and out of the oven, make the honey milk straight away.

Add all ingredients mentioned for the honey milk in a saucepan and heat it up at medium flame. Stir everything around to make sure everything is mixed in well. You will see tiny bubbles erupting on the edges of the saucepan, right before it boils. Turn of the flame right then. Your milk mix is ready!

How to assemble the milk cake

Now all you need to do is poke as many holes as you can in the warm cake (this is where I channel all my anger, just saying) and pour in your warm honey milk all over it. Sometimes it takes a little time for the milk to absorb, but that ok, the whole milk WILL get reabsorbed!

Now set your cake on the counter to cool down and come down to room temperature. Cover in cling wrap and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours at least.

TIP: Use the back of a tablespoon to create interesting texture of the cream
all over your cake. You can also use a piping back and create a design instead.

When the cake is all chilled out, it’s time to put this masterpiece together. I whipped up some regular heavy whipping cream that you normally get from the grocery store. Whipped it up without any added sweetener to it and dumped it all over the cake.

Tips to make the perfect honey milk cake

• Make sure none of your baking products are expired, like baking powder and baking soda.
• Your milk and eggs should be at room temperature.
• Whisk the cake batter properly to avoid any lumps.
• Do NOT use a smaller tray than mentioned.
• Pour the honey milk over the cake while its warm for the best results

Frequently Asked Questions

• How long does this milk cake survive in the fridge?
  You can easily keep this cake for upto 10 days in the fridge. IF you are baking in advance, you can also bake the cake and freeze before taking it out on D Day. Just let the cake thaw for a bit and microwave it for 1 minute to get it all warm again to receive the milk syrup.
• My cake is too dry, what happened?
  If you’ve accidentally overbaked the cake by keeping it a little longer, your cake might become a little dry. Just add 2 tbsp of extra cream in the honey milk mixture to compensate for the slight dryness.
• Can I exclude the rose water?
  Rose water adds a layer of flavor in the recipe, if you don’t like the taste or do not have it at hand, you can exclude it. You can also use almond essence instead.
• Can I make this in a regular baking dish?
  Yes you can. If you are going to use a regular baking tray instead of a pyrex, just use butter paper underneath so that your cake releases easily when you transfer it into your serving dish.
  
  

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