Let’s take a moment to fall in love with this Cinnamon Love Cake, with it’s warming flavours and delicate textures. With Persian origins as told through Iranian folklore, this recipe was created as a love potion by a Persian woman who was madly in love with a prince.
While we’ll simply fall in love with this cake instead, I grew up with a similar recipe. So the Love Cake, it’s textures, flavours and aroma will always bring back fond childhood memories. With authentic recipes using different flours, spices, nuts and even rose water, I’ve created my own version which closely reflects the Love Cake I fell in love with as a child.
Let me introduce you to my Cinnamon Love Cake, which is a fluffy cinnamon cake, sitting on a chewy base and topped with a crunchy cinnamon streusel. Enjoyed hot or cold, eaten by itself or served with plain yoghurt, I’ll let you take a moment to fall in love with this recipe as I did from a very young age.
Can I leave out the cinnamon streusel topping?
Yes you can. However I felt the extra cinnamon crunch added another texture to this recipe and who doesn’t enjoy more cinnamon flavour. Traditionally a Love Cake will have chopping nuts sprinkled over top before baking, such as walnuts, cashews or pistachios, followed by honey, a light drizzle of icing and rose petals. My Cinnamon Love Cake keeps it simple and focuses on the flavours of the cake that I already love.
How can I serve this Cinnamon Love Cake?
You can enjoy a slice of this cake hot or cold, both options are delicious. You can also serve as is, or alongside a dollop of plain yoghurt or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can dress your Love Cake with your choice of nuts or dried rose petals before serving too.
What do I need?
- 20cm round baking tin
- Baking paper
- Tin Foil
- 225g Butter
- 1 Tablespoon Golden Syrup
- 300g Plain Flour
- 240g Brown Sugar
- 2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 250g Sour Cream
- 1 Egg
- 75g Butter – melted
- 150g Plain Flour
- 80g Brown Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- ¼ Teaspoon Salt
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Preheat the oven to 180°c bake and line a 20cm round springform baking tin with baking paper. Set aside.
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To make the cinnamon streusel, melt the butter and combine together the remaining streusel ingredients until they form a crumb. You can then use your hand to clump together larger balls of dough and crumble and break over top of cake batter later on. Set this aside.
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To make the cake, mix together the flour, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a medium sized bowl. Then set aside.
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In a saucepan, melt and mix together the butter and golden syrup over a low heat. Pour this into the bowl with the dry ingredients and fold together until the mixture resembles a crumb.
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Press half of the mixture evenly into the base of the prepared baking tin, then set aside.
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With the remaining mixture, use a hand-held beater to mix through the baking soda, sour cream and egg until smooth. Once incorporated, pour this overtop of the mixture already pressed into the base of the baking tin. Finally, crumble over top a generous amount of the cinnamon streusel mixture.
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Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cover with tin foil to stop the cinnamon streusel browning too much. Then once covered, return to the oven for another 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
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Take the baked cake out of the oven and let it cool slightly before removing from its tin. Then, serve warm or cold as is, or with a dollop of plain yoghurt or vanilla ice cream.
Flashback!
Back in April 2016 I shared this recipe under the name Coconut Love Cake, and it was made using slightly different ingredients. Because I have such fond memories of this cake growing up, I felt the recipe deserved a revamp of ingredients, a re-name, and some new photos taken. So, above were the first and only photos taken of this recipe when it was known as the Coconut Love Cake. I’ve since retired that recipe and have replace it with this Cinnamon Love Cake. Enjoy.
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