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59 Comments

  1. This is SO good! Unfortunately mine sunk in the middle a bit, even though it was fully baked, so the glaze has kind of pooled in the middle. However, it still looks beautiful and tastes amazing!






  2. My favorite recipe! Foolproof. Works well as a Bundt cake as well – 1.5x the recipe with a little extra baking powder (and 2 eggs if not vegan)






    1. Hi Jen, I haven’t tried it without oil and I think it may be tricky to get the same texture without it. Let me know if you do. Maybe applesauce could work? Again, I haven’t tried it so it would be a guess.

    1. I haven’t tried it myself so I can’t say if it will work but I think it will make the cake too dense. Let me know if you try it.

  3. Hi,this recipe looks delicious!
    I need to make it gluten free.Can I use gluten free plain flour instead of regular plain flour?
    Thank you

    1. Hi Christine, I haven’t tried it myself but another reader left a comment saying that she swapped it for all purpose gluten-free flour and it turned out well. Let me know how you go!

  4. When me and my husband got married this summer we made this recipe for our wedding cake. We made it three tiered! And it was a huge success, everyone loved it and it was very special to have a unique cake. Thank you so much.






    1. My goodness, I’m so happy to hear that this cake was part of your special day, and that everyone loved it! Thank you for the lovely review and for sharing your story 💚

  5. Hi I’m looking to make this recipe and wanting to confirm:
    Does rose water also go into the batter ?
    Are there pistachios in the batter or just to decorate?
    Is milk only used for the icing and not the batter?
    So sorry, I’m such a novice but I love this cake and want to get it right 🌹 🤦‍♀️

    1. Hi Leanne,
      No need to be sorry! All good ☺️ To answer your questions:
      The rose water is only for the glaze.
      No pistachio in the cake itself, just a decoration on top.
      There is no milk in this recipe, so I’m not sure what you mean by that question.
      The only wet ingredients are the yoghurt, oil, and the cooked orange. I hope that helps. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Happy baking!

      1. Yes it was already sunk after 20min, but it was fully baked when I took it out. No idea what went wrong. Tastes amazing though. Will give it another try with another baking dish today…

        1. That is odd. Did you open the oven door in those first 20 mins? Try and avoid doing that if you did. Let me know how round two goes! 🙂

  6. LOVE —LOVE —LOVE this recipe. Made 4 batches of cupcakes and everyone raved about them (including my friend who is a chef)!! Easiest recipe to make and soo tasty. Made 2 batches GF following the recommendations.






  7. I fell in love with dish since i read about It here , the flavours, the looks i want to try it out. But if i don’t have cardamom what can i substitute for it also roses water/ extract isn’t available in where i live so can i make mine

    1. Hi Barbara, do you have access to cardamom pods? If so, you can open the pods and grind the seeds in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. Alternatively use cinnamon or leave it out. For the rose water, you can make your own. Google ‘rose water recipe for cooking’. Hope that helps!

    1. You’ll have to bake it for less time. Check it at around 30 minutes and see how much longer it may need based on how dry or wet the skewer or knife is when it comes out from the centre of the cake. It will also be flatter. You could make it as a layered cake if you’d like it to be taller. Let me know how you go 🙂

    1. I haven’t tried but I think it should be fine. I wouldn’t do it for more than 1 month and without the icing.

  8. A beautiful cake for a beautiful friend’s hen party. Instead of a sugar glaze, I whipped up some cream with some icing sugar and decorated the top of that cake with that. It was loooovely! The flavours were all delicately balanced. I used yellow rose petals as I couldn’t find dried rose petals. Was a real treat served up with indian masala chai. THANK YOU so much for this wonderful recipe – I’ll be making a double decker for my mums birthday X






    1. Hi Survi, that’s wonderful! I’m so glad you love this cake. It’s certainly been a hit with everyone I’ve shared it with. I appreciate you also adding the alterations you made; they sound great 🙂 I hope your mum loves it too! Thanks for the review x

  9. I made this cake for a party and it went down a storm so thank you for the recipe 🙂
    I have added nutmeg and cinnamon to the batter, and also lemon juice to the glaze, to cut through the sweetness. But all in all, an explosion of flavours. I will make it again!






    1. Thanks for sharing, Henry! I’m glad it was a hit 🙂 I like your little personal touches. I appreciate you leaving a review x

  10. Hey, just tried out the cake – it’s really good but there’s a bitter taste to the cake – I followed the recipe to the tee ! Could you please tell me where could I have gone wrong?

    1. Hi Kari, your orange might have had a lot of pith (the white part of the orange), which would have caused a slightly bitter taste. I’m sorry it wasn’t perfect, but hopefully, that explains what could have happened. Next time, use one with thinner skin like the one you see in my photos. I’ve just adjusted the recipe card to reflect that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! If it’s not the orange, then maybe your almond flour has gone rancid.

        1. I haven’t tried it, but I think that it won’t come out the same. A whole orange has pulp, fibre, and juice, so the cake’s structure wouldn’t be the same.

    2. You have to use an orange that hasn’t any seeds and a thin pith, pith is the white part which surrounds the sections) so buy a couple of oranges and check they’re nice and sweet and totally seedless, try Navel variety, or halve the orange after it cools and remove all the seeds. Also try washing the orange well before cooking, in very warm water with a splash of white vinegar and then rinse well and dry it with a clean cloth. This will help remove any residue sprays.






  11. It was my first time making a recipe of yours and it was absolutely delicious!! The orange, rose and cardamom flavors compliment each other beautifully.

    Substituted 1 cup and 2tbsp coconut sugar instead of white sugar and 1 cup of gluten-free all purpose flour instead of plain flour. Also took the suggestion of another reviewer and added 2 tbsp of rose water to cake batter. Baked for 45 min. Cake was moist inside and slightly crunchy outside. Thank you for making and sharing such wonderful vegan recipes.

    Will be doubling the ingredients to make one large cake for a friend’s birthday. 😋🙌






    1. So happy you enjoyed it, Linda! I’m glad it worked out well with the alterations. Thank you for sharing 🙂

    1. Yay! So glad you love it 😊 it’s become one of my favourites on the website. Thank you for the lovely review x

  12. Hello!

    Your recipe looks absolutely delicious. Would love to make this for a friend’s birthday. What natural sweetener can I use instead of white sugar, without altering the texture?

    1. Hi Linda, I certainly would! You could try coconut sugar, however, the colour of the cake will be much darker. I haven’t tried it, so I can’t guarantee the same results, but that’s the closest alternative. Liquid sweeteners won’t work as a direct substitute here. I hope that helps!

  13. Simply amazing!! This has to be the best cake I have made all year. Super easy recipe to follow. I can’t express how much I loved this one thank you for the recipe!






  14. I made this recipe as written, except for one thing which may have been a mistake on my part. Though I weighed all the other ingredients, I failed to weigh the orange. I thought my orange was small so I used 1 1/2 oranges cut in half and submerged them in the water to cook.
    The cake was STUNNING. I made it in three stoneware mini loaf pans and baked for 40 minutes due to the smaller sized pans.
    The cake is so moist and delicious. The only thing is, the reason I went searching for this recipe is because I had it from a bakery a couple of months ago and loved it, and especially because it was vegan.
    My cake, though lovely in its own right, was not like the bakery at all. Mine was overpoweringly orangey. I can’t taste the rose, pistachio or almond flavors, just orange-but I do think this is because I used too much weight in oranges.
    I will try this again because the cake itself is amazingly moist and beautiful as decorated. It is one of the prettiest cakes ever. I’ll just be sure and weigh my orange first!






    1. Thanks for sharing, Morgen! It probably was a little too much orange if it was overpowering. Persian love cakes vary from recipe to recipe, so they could have also been a bit more heavy-handed with some other ingredients or incorporated others. Let me know how you go next time 😊

  15. How much cardamom do I use if I grind it from the pod. Still 1 tsp? Will the cardamom flavour be too strong? Thank you.

    1. Hi Sue, you’ll want to only grind the seeds inside (remove them from the pod). If it’s freshly ground, use less. Maybe start with half the amount. I haven’t tried it, so I’m not 100% sure sorry. It also depends on how much cardamom you like in desserts 🙂

  16. Any recommendations for adapting for cupcakes? I’d love to make this for my coworkers without the mess of plates and cutlery.

    1. I haven’t tried it myself, but it should be fine. Bake them for 30-40 minutes and see if they’re cooked all the way through; if not, bake until the skewer comes out clean. Let me know how they turn out 😊

  17. This cake has been a huge hit in my household. I took a few extra steps by adding 2 tablespoons of rosewater and some bloomed saffron into the cakemix. I’m not a huge fan of glazes so I just sifted some icing sugar on the cake and it turned out great! Persian new years is coming up so I will def make this for my family. Happy new years!






    1. Happy New Year! I’m so glad you all enjoyed it, Bahar! Thank you for your lovely feedback and for sharing your changes x

  18. Absolutely loved how easy and delicious this recipe is! The only modifications I made included a pinch of salt to the batter and to lessen the rose water to 1/2tsp. The first one I ate by myself in less than 24 hours.






    1. So glad you enjoyed it, Sarah! It’s a little addictive, isn’t it? 😂 Thanks for sharing your modifications x

  19. Made this yesterday and everyone is raving about it! How genius to use whole oranges, saves the hassle of grating & squeezing 🙂 Awesome creation!






        1. I haven’t tried it myself, however, you can try and substitute all-purpose gluten-free flour and see how it turns out. It won’t be as light as this one but worth a shot. The other option is to use the base of my chocolate and orange gluten-free cake and follow the rest of the recipe as above otherwise. Let me know how you go!