Rose Honey Almond Cake *(Vegan, GF) 

 
I made an East meets West version of this traditional Camino de Santiago almond cake when Andrew Harvey and Banefseh Sayyad came to Hollyhock to do a evening performance that involved  Rumi poetry , Sufi dance and  United Nations activism  all whirled in a very inspiring dervish sort of way.   The dinner that preceded had a good number of vegan/gluten free/sugar free attendees (!?) so I had to come up with something unique for dessert.  Alongside the ground almonds,  I used brown rice flour, rather  than wheat, coconut oil instead of  butter, and  rose water instead of eggs and an added dash of ground petals we snuck from Nori's garden.  This was such a big hit the kitchen was accused of putting some potion a la water for chocolate in the  batter.  This  vegan version did incite some holy passions that night--and lots of recipe request love notes on the board the morning after.