It is so true that we all should stop and smell the roses sometime. We did and all those fragrant roses also inspired this Coconut Cake with Rose Petals which we enjoyed for dessert after a lovely dinner on Easter Sunday. We hope you had all a beautiful holiday weekend too. It is all started when last week the garden had so many beautiful flowers in bloom that we thought to decorate the whole house for a festive Easter weekend. We ended up with so many roses and gorgeous rose petals that we just had to make something with them.
Maybe it was the heady perfumed aroma that permeated our senses and made us do really silly things like eating rose petals (mmm… they were really flavorful) and craving something sweet. We had recently watched the movie Marie Antoinette and all those indulgent desserts decorated with rose petals had us wanting more. You can find many pretty edible flowers in our local organic grocery store and we did use them in salads but never made a cake before where the flowers become the delicious topping.
After the fun in the rose garden we eagerly looked online and found a gorgeous rose petal cake from Epicurious, which we fell in love with. After visiting the pantry we decided to make more of a Spring cake with coconut and a cream cheese frosting instead of the authentic whipped cream and saffron. We did save the recipe so Corina can make a love cake and enchant somebody soon….
This cake was so lovely it would be perfect for a Mother’s Day dessert or just for a Sunday afternoon coffee and cake break. Springtime evokes the need to be outdoors in the warming days and the longing for sweets and it is the perfect time for fresh creamy desserts and especially for coconut.
We have always loved the sweet smell of roses so it was delicious experience to taste the lovely sugar coated pink and yellow multi-colored petals. As we learned the They are like little tempting bites of delicate candy, which can make you quiet confused because you don’t know if you should smell it or eat it. The best part is that this beautiful Coconut Cake with Rose Petals and pistachios is very simple to make, so take a little time to set the table with a vase filled of fresh roses, open a bottle of sweet bubbly and let the magic begin.
The bottle we opened was a Riverbench Cork Jumper Demi Sec Sparkling wine with a touch of sweetness and floral and citrus notes. The wine flavors interacted playfully with the rose water coconut flavors and it was a party of flavors all very harmonious in our mouth. We can envision any nice chilled bottle of sweeter sparkling wine to sip along with this elegant concoction.
You can’t talk about roses without memories, so here are ours:
Judit: I adore the smell of roses, and it takes me back to my childhood in Europe when my grandmother came with her rose scented lace hanker shift to wipe my tears or smudges from my face. It made me feel so content and cherished. Right now I have a nice Rosewater Triple Milled soap from Crabtree & Evelyn that gives a little floral note to the closet. And yes I do have a few hanker shifts with this intoxicating aroma. Miss you very much grandma.
Corina: I recall finding a vial of rose water oil in my grandmothers linen drawer when I was little and pouring all of it on my darling porcelain doll. It smelled good for a couple years until my aunt took the doll from me for her daughter and they never gave it back. Rose water gives a soft sweet scent and I have tried the Rose L`Occitane en Provence Rose perfume, which was nice and subtle. You can make your own version of a fragrant perfume. Take a few drops of rose water oil and mix it with purified water to make a rose water mist to spray your linens, refresh yourself or a room.
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;” – William Shakespeare
There are over 100 species of roses and we have about 15 or so varieties here in the garden.
Santa Barbara is filled with this noble bloom almost year around and right now due to a water shortage everybody has to be cautious and preserve water. Who would have thought the roses flourish in the drier ground. This year the flowers seem to be larger and the colors more incredibly vibrant like nature used a magic brush to brighten them to ultimate levels.
This creamy confection made us think of Marie Antoinette and her infamous line “Let them eat cake.” If you have seen Sofia Coppola’s movie Marie Antoinette, you may remember all the decadent sweets and even cakes garnished with rose petals in many scenes, which inspired our dessert decor as well. The elegant presentation of food made the film so enthralling.
Roses are wonderful for decoration, but there are also some medicinal qualities to them. Take for instance Rose Hips, they are the cherry red furies that are left after the roses bloom out and often used for tea or jelly. When you are sipping that rose hip tea it’s nice to know they have a considerable amount of Vitamin C so they are quite good for you. Rose water may have been first created in the 10th Century by Persian author and philosopher Ibn Sīnā. It is used in Middle Eastern cuisine and even in the delectable chewy dessert known as Turkish delight.
“Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.” – W. Somerset Maugham
No, no, no W. Somerset Maugham, the smell is not just all for us, you can eat it too!
If you go and buy roses to decorate this Coconut Cake with Rose Petals, make sure the roses are organic and have no pesticides. Also please make sure that you have no allergies to them. You can make this cake without rose petals or with other edible flowers or even fruits if you prefer. You can even make it as a bundt cake or cupcakes, but the batter is more dense so is ideal for a round pan. We wanted the batter to be sweet but not overly and so we added a cup of tangy Greek yogurt, which turned out to be a delicious decision.
Orange zest and rose water are made for each other, just make sure you fold the zest in with a spatula or wooden spoon to avoid having them stick to the beater attachment. Because the rose petals were brushed with raw egg whites it is safer to consume the cake within 2 days. If you make this cake without the rose petals, this coconut cake with the frosting alone will be fine in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, not that we had any left after 2 days
Here are the steps to make the Sugared Rose Petals to top the Coconut Cake with Rose Petals.
14 Organic Rose Petals – washed, patted dry
1 Egg White – slightly beaten
1/4 cup Swerve Sweetener
With a small pastry or watercolor brush lightly brush the beaten egg white on both sides of the petal.
Sprinkle with sugar. Let it dry in single layer on parchment paper.
Best if made ahead by at least two hours so they can dry, or you can even make them a day ahead.
Coconut Cake with Rose Petals
Ingredients
For the Coconut Cake
- 8 oz 2 sticks Unsalted Butter - at room temperature
- 1 cup Coconut Sugar
- 4 Large Eggs - at room temperature
- 1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 Tbsp Rose Water
- 1 1/2 cups Flour
- 3/4 cup Pistachio - ground plus 16 halve Pistachios for decoration
- 1 1/2 Tsp Baking powder
- Pinch of Salt
- 1 cup Yogurt
- Zest of 1 Orange
- 1 cup Coconut - sweetened and shredded
For the frosting:
- 8 oz Whipped Cream Cheese - at room temperature
- 4 oz 1 stick Unsalted Butter - at room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups Swerve Sweetener
- 1/2 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 Tsp Rose Water
- 1 1/2 cups Coconut - shredded
Instructions
For the Coconut Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.
- Grease with butter a 9 inch round baking pan with removable bottom. Fit a piece of round parchment paper on bottom of the pan and grease again and dust the whole pan with flour.
- In a large mixing bowl beat together butter and coconut sugar until becomes nice creamy. Add the eggs one by one and continue to beat on medium high.
- Add vanilla extract and rose water.
- Add the yogurt and continue to beat on low until well combined.
- In a medium bowl sift in the flour with the baking powder and salt. Stir in the ground pistachio and slowly add to the sugar mixture.
- With a spatula stir in the orange zest and the coconut.
- Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until toothpick tester comes out clean. Set aside to cool.
For the frosting:
- In a large mixer blend together the cream cheese, butter and sweetener. Slowly add the vanilla and rose water.
- Spread the frosting evenly over the cake. Sprinkle the shredded coconut over the cake.
- Decorate with the sugared rose petals by lightly pressing them on the cake. Additionally, we added a few more ala natural petals and the pistachio halves to the top.
Food & Wine Pairing: Riverbench Cork Jumper Demi Sec 2011, Santa Barbara County, California. This sparkling wine has a touch of sweetness that makes it ideal for enjoying with desserts, like a light cake or with cheeses. Aromas of freshly baking brioche and citrus on the nose. Floral flavors like a field of wild flowers in summer. It is the Kristen Dunst of wines with its effervescent personality and indulgent flavors.
You can also enjoy this dessert with a Sofia Blanc de Blanc from the Francis Ford Coppola Winery with flavors of summer citrus and sweet honeysuckle. This wine is named after Coppola’s daughter, who directed the movie Marie Antoinette.
Such a gorgeous cake, wow, perfect for Mother’s Day indeed! And love the coconut and pistachios.
Such a beauty..and elegance!
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BEAUTIFUL, girls!
I’ve only just discovered all these edible flowers and would love to try some soon – especially roses! I can’t imagine a more gorgeous cake. The white of that icing contrasts perfectly with the petals!
Absolutely beautiful presentation and photography ! I love coconut cake and the sugared rose petals are a sweet sweet touch ! Dreaming of a piece of cake right now .
Wow, gorgeous styling and photography! Thanks for the eye candy!
Your coconut cake with rose petals looks just too beautiful to eat! It would be perfect for a wedding shower or a special birthday. The photos are just stunning and you both look so pretty in the garden. This is one cake that will be on my to-do list!
We are happy you enjoyed the Coconut Cake recipe Marcia! This cake is a nice celebration dessert for any occasion and not too difficult to decorate. We had such a fun time selecting the just right blooms for making the sugared rose petals on such a lovely day. Cheers! J+C
OMG, what a gorgeous cake! I’ve never tried using rose petails on cakes. I’m following you now at the various social media sites & would love to have you follow me too. Looking fwd to sharing our love for food!
Thank you Blackswan for following us and the comment! With the rose petals make sure they are organic and not sprayed and that you don’t have any allergies to them. They also need to dry for a little bit before putting them on the cake. Cheers! J+C
What a stunningly beautiful cake!
We are happy you liked it! J+C
What a beautiful cake! I love the shredded coconut and rose petals on top. Perfect for Mother’s Day! 😀
Thank you Lorraine, the coconut added a nice nutty touch and since it was not very sweet balanced the frosting. It does make a nice Mother’s Day cake or a celebration cake. J+C
That cake is so pretty! It makes me want to throw a fancy tea party!
Thank you Mary Frances, the coconut cake does go well with tea or coffee too! J+C
Ladies:
What a coconut cake! It is so elegant and sounds so scrumptious that makes me want to eat it all.
I love roses as well. My husband planted many bushes in our garden years ago and I have been enjoyed them a lot. Your pictures are lovely. This is definitely a happy space!
Hello Denise, how wonderful that you have so many roses. We really enjoyed the process of gathering the blooms and choosing which ones would be just right for the cake. It was really difficult taking photos since we had impatient guests waiting for a piece of cake. J+C
I’m very glad the roses permeated your senses because they make a beautiful addition to this cake. It looks like a work of art and I bet the coconut flavour is delightful.
Krissie x
Thank you Krissie for the compliments. The coconut is not too sweet so thus goes nicely with the frosting and roses. J+C
I agree, those rose petals make for a beautiful decoration. Now I’ll have to go back and watch that movie. I don’t remember much about it.
Hello Lea Ann, we love watching Marie Antoinette just for all the wonderful desserts and costumes. Cheers! J+C
Ohhh mi querida es un cake romántico con pétalos ,preciosas fotos como siempre esta receta es digna de preparar pronto,abrazos
Gracias hicimos disfrutar de hacer este pastel de coco y tuvo que asegurarse de no comer los pétalos de rosa para que hubiera alguna para decorar. Cheers! J+C
So gorgeous that I’d have a hard time eating it. Perfect for bridal showers. Absolutely love that it’s coconut!
Pinning!
Thank you for pinning Melanie and we did devour it rather quickly. J+C
What a gorgeous cake and the flavors are so up my alley. And the garden pics with you are so beautiful.
We enjoyed gathering the roses in the garden and glad you liked the photos Evelyne. J+C
This cake is so pretty and it muste taste divine! A lovely combination of flavors.
Cheers,
Rosa
Hello Rosa, it did taste wonderful, we would have taken more photos if we did not have guests impatient to try it. Cheers! J+C
I love this cake and those rose petals look terrific on top. Your photos make me happy.
Thank you Maureen, and the best part is that the rose petals are edible! Cheers! J+C
I’m so glad you mentioned organic rose petals. I’ve been to far too many events where conventionally grown flowers are put on, or even stuck into, cakes. The fresh flower industry drenches their flowers in poisons to ensure perfect, unblemished blooms. Those flowers should not be anywhere near food! Lovely cake – and the pistachios, mmm.
Thank you Jean! You right and it is sad about the flower industry because there are so many natural remedies to keep the flowers healthy and beautiful without using any chemicals.
J+C
Such a beautiful post…the cake is absolutely gorgeous…I love the sugared rose petals…I wanted to make them…very elegant.
Thank you so much for this post…hope you both are having a fantastic week 😀
Thank you Juliana, and hope you are having a beautiful weekend as well! The coconut cake was utterly delicious and can’t wait to create more desserts with the sugared petals 🙂
J+C
What an enchanting cake! The radiant roses capture the essence of spring, a fabulous post!
Thank you so much Deb! We feel so lucky to have roses almost year round 🙂
J+C
What a beautiful cake! I always enjoy looking at every single one of your pictures. They are gorgeous! Both my grandmothers had beautiful rose gardens and roses always remind me of them.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment Christin! Isn’t it wonderful that no matter where we grew up we all seem to have rose scented grandmothers 🙂
Cheers,
J+C
Such a luxurious dessert! I love the colors you chose for the sugared rose petals to top that gorgeous cake and the charming photography in the garden. Glad I found your blog!
We are very glad too Samantha, and hope you will enjoy our recipes!
Cheers,
J+C
Really cute! The coconut cake is too! Haven’t tried anything like it but sure looks great!
Thanks Brian! The cake was heavenly and hope you will try something really delicious soon 🙂
J+C
Wahhh so pretty! I’ve never worked with petals and food together but you two inspired me to make something pretty like this! The rose petals alone brighten our day, but when they are on the cake… fabulous. It’s one of the prettiest cake I’ve seen!
Thank you for your kind words Nami! Hope you get to try this cake and use some candied rose petals in one of your gorgeous recipes 🙂
J+C
YUM! I love coconut!! This cake looks beautiful! So pretty! Great photography!
Thank you Cailee! We had a lot of fun in the garden and in the kitchen 🙂
this is honestly one of the most beautiful cakes i’ve ever seen! gorgeous!
Your are so kind Shoko! Thank you.
J+C
What a fun recipe! And a gorgeous one, to boot. Fortunately we grow roses, and they’re organic — so guess what I can make? 😉 Good stuff — thanks.
Glad you found more purpose for your roses John! Choose roses with the strongest scent and make sure that you brush the egg white on very thin and evenly. We had on a few petals thicker layer and they took forever to dry 🙂
J+C
This cake looks so incredible! It’s beautiful with all of those rose petals, then with yogurt, pistachios, and orange in the cake? This is a very original coconut cake recipe, which is one of my favorites. I’d love to try it!
Hello Marcie! SO glad you liked this cake! Coconut is our favorite too and the touch of orange flavor played beautifully with the rose water and pistachios. Enjoy the recipe 🙂
J+C
love love love rose water, and with coconut and pistachio just sound heavenly! love your beautiful style as well! =) thank you Judit & Corina for inspiring!
Thank you so much Amanda! We could splash rose water in most dessert too. It gives such an exotic flavor and lets not forget the scent 🙂
Cheers,
J+C
What an exceptionally pretty dessert! I like how you decorated with coconut and sugar coated roses and I’m sure the cake must taste as wonderful as it looks. My mother-in-law will be joining us for dinner on Mother’s Day so I may attempt to make this for her. She doesn’t like very heavy desserts and loves coconut so this would be just right with the silky cream cheese frosting.
Hi Nancy! The cake was very flavorful and light in the same time and hope you will enjoy this recipe. As for the candied petals make sure that your rose petals are fresh and aromatic. We tried with different petals and most scented tasted a sweetest 🙂
J+C
This cake is so beautiful and absolutely perfect for a holiday table! I absolutely love how fresh, bright and delicious it looks! Love!
Thank you so much Kristi! The best to use the roses very fresh because the colors are still vibrant.
J+C
Hi Judit & Corina, very impressive posting. The coconut cake look so delightful with lovely rose petals. Excellent presentation and photography. Well done!
Have a nice day, regards.
Thank you for your kind comment Amelia! The cake was really delicious and can’t wait to bake another one with coconut soon 🙂
J+C
Beautiful cake! Beautiful photos too. Reading this post makes me want to start a garden but with my hectic schedule that’s not nearly possible.
Thank you Kathy, and we do hope you will have time soon to slow down and smell the roses 🙂
J+C
Oh my gosh, this is probably one of the prettiest cakes i have ever seen!!
So glad you liked it Joanne!
J+C
My oh my! There are so many beautiful things to say about the appearance of and ingredients in this cake that I really wouldn’t know where to start! It reminds me of an expensive fluffy pillow. It’s absolutely gorgeous and definitely worthy of presenting to mum on Mother’s Day. I honestly had no idea you could eat rose petals!
You right Helen, the coconut makes it look really fluffy! Thank you for your kind comment and we were really surprised how good rose petals taste. Hope you will try them too 🙂
J+C
Beautiful coconut cake, ladies! I love the addition of the roses…so appropriate for Mother’s Day. Lovely photography. Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful week!
This looks almost too beautiful to eat! I love those clicks of you and your daughter in the garden. Precious!
Thanks Angie! It was a wonderful afternoon to remember.
Cheers,
J+C
Growing up, we’d make trips to the art museum in our state capital at least once a year. The grounds included a rose garden, so the scent of roses always brings me back to my childhood. Your cake is a work of art!
Thank you Liz for sharing your lovely memories! In Budapest is an island middle of the Danube river and in the spring and summer the grounds are filled with the most beautiful different colored roses. It was so lovely to stroll among scented blooms…
Cheers,
J+C
You dears always have amazing and beautiful pictures I love roses and have some bushes in my garden but now only a few here we are in autumn but this is a lovely recipe to make next spring:)
Thank you Gloria, you can still make the cake without rose petals or perhaps try sugared fruit (or just simply fresh fruit) instead. Hope you will enjoy it! J+C
The roses are stunning and your coconut cake looks absolutely beautiful! I have not tried sugared rose petals like that before, but it sure sounds good. You both are adorable in the garden photos.
The sugared rose petals can be quite addictive since they are like light bites of candy. Some did not make it onto the cake…. Thanks Angela, we had fun selecting from among all the beautiful roses in the garden. J+C
I am a woman with 25 roses bushes in her garden. So of course I love love love the roses—except for the fact I live in north part of the Pacific NW and I don’t have roses yet. The cake is gorgeous. The recipe is luscious. I like the wine choice also—-taking in consideration your description of the wine. On my site I match tea with food like you do with wine. I agree this would be an excellent choice for Mom’s day or a wee tea party. I gave a hoot of laughter with the one picture. Oh yeah I am sure that typical of most of our lives. Lol.
How lovely to have so many rose bushes Carol and hopefully there will be actual roses soon! We love filling the house with fresh flowers and luckily roses bloom rather often here, but they may not last as long due to the heat. Thank you for the sweet compliments! This coconut cake would be perfect for a tea party! Perhaps with a rose hip tea or light fruity one. Which tea would you recommend Carol? Cheers! J+C