Moist Pistachio Cake

Pistachio cake occupies an interesting place in the baking world – it is not quite as familiar as almond cake or walnut cake, but once people taste it, it tends to become a favourite quickly. The flavour is subtle and complex: mildly sweet, slightly buttery, faintly resinous in the way that only pistachios are. It does not announce itself the way chocolate or lemon does. But it has a quality that is hard to describe until you have had a well-made version – something between toasty and floral that makes the cake feel both rich and light at the same time.

The most important decision in a pistachio cake is how to get the pistachio flavour into the batter. There are three approaches: use raw ground pistachios as part of the flour, use pistachio paste, or use both. This recipe uses finely ground raw pistachios in combination with flour, which gives genuine pistachio flavour and also produces a slightly more tender, moist crumb than an all-flour cake. Ground pistachios are simply raw nuts blitzed until fine in a food processor – pistachio paste can be harder to find in regular supermarkets.

For the best colour and most intense flavour, use unsalted, raw (not roasted) pistachios. Roasted pistachios have a deeper, more caramelized flavour that competes with the cake’s natural delicacy, and they produce a brownish rather than pale green crumb. If all you can find are salted roasted pistachios, reduce the salt in the recipe and expect a slightly different but still very pleasant result.

The topping here is a pistachio cream – a lightly whipped cream with finely ground pistachios stirred through it. It is less sweet than buttercream and more delicate, which suits the gentle flavour of the cake. If you prefer buttercream, a simple version with pistachio paste beaten through works well. The chopped pistachios scattered on top provide a textural contrast to the soft cream and crumb and make the cake look as good as it tastes.

A swap worth knowing: replace up to a third of the pistachios in the batter with ground almonds. Almonds are slightly more neutral in flavour and the combination is very pleasant. A teaspoon of orange blossom water added to the batter gives a distinctly Middle Eastern character that works beautifully with pistachio.

The most common mistake is over-processing the pistachios when making the ground nut flour. Pulse them in short bursts and stop when they are fine and sandy – if you keep going, the oils release and you end up with pistachio butter, which makes the cake dense and greasy. If your pistachios start to clump, freeze them for 10 minutes before processing.

If delicate, nut-forward cakes are your thing, try Almond Cake (Tarta de Santiago) next – or Berry Chantilly Cake if you want to keep the same pale, elegant feel but add berries and cream.