Lemon Pistachio Cake
Ingredients
For Pistachio Layer
Plain flour - 1½ cups
Raw pistachio nuts - 2 cups
Powdered sugar - 1 cup
Cold butter, cut into small pieces - 1 cup (227 gms)
Salt - ½ tsp
For the Lemon Cake
Unsalted butter - ½ cup (113 gms) @room temperature
Sugar - 1 cup
Fresh lemon zest - 1-2 Tbsp (skin of 2 large lemons)
Fresh lemon juice - ⅓ cup
Eggs - 2 large @ room temp
Cake flour - 1½ cups (refer notes for substitution)
Baking powder - ½ tsp
Baking soda - ½ tsp
Salt - ½ tsp
Buttermilk - ½ cup (refer notes for substitution)
For Lemon Glaze
Powdered sugar - 1 ½ cups (I used Icing sugar)
Lemon juice - ⅓-1/2 cup
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare a 10” Spring form pan with baking spray.
For the Pistachio Layer:
In a food processor, combine the flour, pistachios, sugar and salt. Pulse until well combined. Add the butter and pulse until a green, uniform dough forms.
Pour the dough into the spring form pan.
Press into a firm crust on the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
For the Cake Layer:
In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, add the butter, sugar and lemon zest.
Beat the butter, sugar and zest together until they are light and fluffy.
In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt) and set aside.
With the mixer running on low, add the eggs one at a time, combining thoroughly in between.
Add the lemon juice, (it will look curdled, but it’s not!)
Alternately add the dry ingredients and butter milk, but make sure you start and end with the dry ingredients.
Mix the batter until all of the ingredients are completely combined and the batter is light and fluffy.
Pour the cake batter on top of the pistachio layer.
Bake the cakes on a middle shelf for 25-35 minutes (refer notes) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool before removing from the pan.
While the cake is cooling, make the lemon glaze. Whisk powdered sugar and lemon juice: Opaque and thick enough to coat, but still runny enough to drip down the sides.
When the cake is completely cool, pour the glaze over the top, letting it drip down the sides. Sprinkle with a few Tbs of chopped pistachio nuts.
Notes
Substitution for Cake flour: Take 1.5 cups of plain flour and remove 3 tbsp flour from it and add 3 tbsp cornflour and sift the mixture three times.
Substitution for Buttermilk: for ½ cup buttermilk - ½ tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar + enough milk to make ½ cup. Let stand for 5 minutes
If you check the recipe, you can see that it uses quite a bit of butter, so what I did is I halved the recipe of the Pistachio base and made full qty of cake. Springform or loose bottom tin is not necessary. You can bake in a regular cake tin.
I used a combination of lemon and lime for this recipe.
My cake took almost 40-45 mins to get baked, though the original recipe suggested 25-35 mins, so pls keep in mind that baking time may vary.
Since I didnt have a 10 inch pan and I used two different baking tins (one small & one big) to bake the cake.
I didnt shell the pistachios for the base layer.
Cake can be stored at room temp for 3-4 days in an airtight container, unless you live in extremely humid places.
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