Vanilla Cake with Creamy Rose Water Icing

I'm going through an add-rose-water-to-everything phase.
 Ok, almost everything, I guess. Chocolate cupcakes are exempt; as are rusks, and coffee cheesecake, and carrot muffins... So, maybe not even close to everything I've baked recently.
 But a lot a few things, ok?!

Sometimes I call these treats "turkish-delight-flavoured", but essentially it's just a splash of rose water...

The impulse is partially to do with the flavour (it's the taste of spring!), but also because it's an excuse to fling some rose petals around for the photos - it's just so darn pretty decorating with rose petals 💕

This sponge cake is the recipe I use very often for cakes and cupcakes. Most recently in these pastel-coloured mini cakes... which actually were rose-water flavoured!

The icing is a blend of normal buttercream and cream cheese icing ... and rose water flavoured, of course.

Creamy Rose Water Icing:

250g butter, at room temperature
500g icing sugar, sifted
250g medium fat cream cheese, at room temperature
2-3tsps rose water (to taste)
Pink gel food colour


Beat the butter until smooth, light and creamy (This step takes a while, but is well worth it for the final texture of the icing).
Add the sifted icing sugar. Beat again until light and creamy.
Gently beat in the cream cheese, gel colour and rose water.

When you assemble the layers of sponge and icing, sprinkle some crushed pistachios on top of the icing for extra flavour and colour (and crunch!) or chop up squares of turkish delight and add those to the icing. Then we can truly call it turkish delight icing, right?!

Happy baking!

xxM