A few months ago my husband order couple pounds of high quality nuts, among one of them were delicious unsalted pistachios. We ate about 4lbs of them already but I was trying to save the last bag for a special occasion cake. I've searched high and low for a good recipe of a pistachio cake but they are quite rare. I was first contemplating making this chocolate cake with pistachio buttercream, but than I loved how the pistachio cake layers would play with buttercream. And they sure did! I have to warn though - this cake is very rich and after eating a small slice, one must have the cardiologist on standby. ha!
The original recipe is from Jar of Vanilla blog and followed it to a tee. It wasn't a hard cake to make but definitely took some time.
Things I would change next time.
- reduce sugar by 1/2 in batter and 1/2 in frosting.
- add a drop of green food coloring into the batter
- add pistachio extract for pop of pistachio flavor
- don't use vanilla extract
Ingredients
For the cake
- 1½ cups ice-water
- 1 cup shelled pistachios
- 2½ cups cake flour (see notes)
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- a pinch of salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1¾ cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 3 large egg whites, at room temperature
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
For the buttercream
- 1½ cups sugar
- ⅓ cup flour
- 1½ cups milk
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- 1½ cups unsalted butter, soft, cut into small pieces
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 Tablespoon honey
Instructions
Prepare the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 162 degrees C (325 degrees F)
- Grease three 9-inch cake pans. Line with parchment paper and grease again. Dust with flour
- Put some ice in a measuring cup. Add cold water (up to the 1 ½ cup mark) and set aside
- Pulse the pistachio in a food processor until coarse. Remove 2 tablespoons to a small bowl
- Grind the remaining pistachios until finely chopped.
- Combine the coarse and fine pistachios in a large bowl and whisk.
- Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on top of the ground pistachios. Whisk until combined and set aside.
- Using the paddle attachment of the stand-up mixer, cream the butter for 3 minutes. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat for another 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Add in the egg and beat until just combined.
- Add the flour/pistachio mix to the batter in three additions, alternating with the ice water, mixing each time until just combined. Scrape down the bowl and mix on low speed for a few more seconds.
- In a separate medium sized clean bow, combine the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.
- Gently fold egg whites into batter.
- If you have a kitchen scale, weigh batter (batter weight) = total weight – bowl weight.
- Divide batter among three cakes pans and smooth tops.
- Bake in preheated oven for 35 – 40 minutes. (don't over bake). Toothpick inserted into center should come out almost clean (just a few crumbs sticking to it).
- Allow cakes to cool down for 20 minutes
- Flip warm cakes onto cooling racks and let cool completely before frosting
- Remove parchment paper from bottoms
Prepare the buttercream
- Combine the flour, sugar, heavy cream and milk in a medium saucepan and whisk until smooth.
- Put saucepan on medium heat and whisk mixture continuously. You can remove whisk and start stirring with a wooden spoon.
- Stir until mixture thickens and starts bubbling.
- Pour hot mixture into the bowl of a standup mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on high speed until it has completely cooled (about 10 minutes)
- Reduce speed to low and add butter, a few pieces at a time. Increase speed and beat for a few more minutes until light and fluffy
- Add honey and vanilla and beat again until combined.
Assemble the Cake:
- Level tops of cakes with a serrated knife.
- Place one layer on a cake board (top side up). Spread frosting onto the layer
- Place second later. Spread frosting onto the layer
- Place the final layer (bottom side up). Spread a thin layer of frosting all over the cake (crumb coating).
- Refrigerate cake for 30 minutes to set the crumb coat.
- After 30 minutes, evenly spread the remaining frosting on the sides and top of cake.
- Decorate with pistachios
Notes
*Cake flour is not readily available where I live, so here is the substitute I used: I used all-purpose flour. I removed 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour for ever cup of cake flour required; in total I removed 5 ‘levelled’ tablespoons of flour. I added 5 ‘levelled’ tablespoons of corn-starch and sifted them together. Please note that this is a substitution only for the cake flour. The remaining ingredients, including the ¾ cup all-purpose flour, were used as is with no changes made to them).
