By Leslie Brenner

Festive, fun, transporting — and way easier than it might look, this Persian cake is just the thing for sweetening a special evening. Scented with both rose water and orange blossom water, it’s a sponge-cake roll strewn with dried rose petals and chopped pistachios. Slice it, scatter some of the petals and nuts on the slice and you’ve got a party on a plate.

The recipe is adapted from Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, by one of my favorite cookbook authors, Najmieh Batmanglij.

To create it, you make a sponge cake batter, spread it on a sheet pan, bake it (it bakes in a flash), spread it with whipped cream flavored with the two blossom waters, plus sugar and vanilla, roll it up jelly-roll style, chill it, strew with petals and pistachios and slice.