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An easy and moist cardamom cake recipe packed with pistachio and a touch of orange. My cardamom pistachio cake can be paired with pistachio buttercream and styled up or down to fit the occasion!
Ingredients for Pistachio Cardamom Cake
- Sugar - caster sugar or superfine granulated sugar.
- Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature.
- Eggs at room temperature.
- Mascarpone cheese - ideally at room temperature.
- Pistachio paste - you can buy this from the store or make your own! My homemade pistachio paste is easy to make and will keep you well supplied with pistachio nut butter.
- Vanilla extract
- Flour - all purpose flour or plain flour
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Ground cardamom - you can grind your own, but buying pre-ground will save you a lot of time and effort!
- Pistachio buttercream - one quantity of my pistachio buttercream will fill and cover this cake.
- Zest from one orange to give a bit of a citrus hit!
Making My Easy Cardamom Cake with Pistachio
This is an easy one bowl recipe! Ideally, all your ingredients should be room temperature.
Preparation
Start by preheating your oven to 350°F (175C/155C Fan) and preparing your baking tins. This recipe has been made in 7.5" round silicone cake tins. The benefit of silicone is that you do not need to grease or flour these.
You can also make this recipe in two 8" round tins or three 5" tins. The baking times will vary, so keep an eye!
If you are using traditional cake tins, not silicone, be sure to well grease and flour these.
One Bowl Cake Recipe
In a large mixing bowl, cream together sugar and butter until nice light and fluffy. Add the eggs individually, beating well after each addition.
Then, add the mascarpone, pistachio paste and vanilla extract. Beat this well to ensure the paste is well incorporated.
Finally, sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cardamom into the mixing bowl. Beat until just combined - you don't want to overmix the flour and leavening agents.
Pour the batter into your cake tins and smooth out the tops with an offset spatula.
Bake in the centre of your preheated oven for about 1 hour. After about 45 minutes, start checking for doneness using a toothpick or skewer inserted into the centre. Once this comes out clean, the cakes are done and can be removed.
Allow to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto wire racks to continue cooling. Meanwhile make the pistachio buttercream (or other frosting) and zest your orange.
Assembling Cardamom Orange Pistachio Cake
To assemble your cake, you need:
- Your two cake layers, which should be cool enough to easily handle
- Pistachio buttercream
- Zest of an orange.
- Offset spatula or butter knife
- Optional: bread knife or long cerated blade, icing scraper/smoother, and a piping bag with a star tip.
Cakes have a tendency to dome a bit in the oven. This cake should stay fairly level, but if you want a flat topped finish to your presentation, you may wish to cut off any doming.
This can be done with a bread knife or other long cerated blade. Holding this level parallel to your work surface, carefully cut around the top of the cake, removing the dome and leaving a level surface. Do this to both cakes.
Place one of your cakes on a cake plate or other serving platter and top with about a third of the pistachio buttercream. Smooth this evenly and add the orange zest sprinkled over top.
Next place your second cake on top. For the smoothest top to the cake, invert the second layer so that the flat bottom is actually the final top to the cake. This trick will give you a flatter surface and sharper edges to the finish.
Add most of the remaining buttercream and smooth over the top and sides.
You can then use a scraper to smooth the sides flat or into a pattern, such as the ridges in my finished product. Reserving any excess frosting to pipe around the top.
FAQs for Pistachio Cardamom Cake
This cake will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator if frosted. Do not put unfrosted cakes in the refrigerator, or these will begin to stale. The buttercream acts as a protective coat to lock the freshness in place.
No, the orange zest is optional, but gives a nice citrus hint to the whole cake. You can use lemon zest as well to achieve a similar result. Alternatively, you can make this pistachio cardamom cake with different frostings or fillings as well.
Pistachio and cardamom cake can easily be frozen. For best results, freeze the cake layers before assembly. Allow the layers to cool first before wrapping and sealing in ziploc bags to freeze for up to three months. Defrost first before assembling.
If you like this recipe, you might also like these recipes:
Cardamom Pistachio Cake
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- 1½ cups caster sugar or superfine granulated
- 1 cup mascarpone cream
- 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoon pistachio paste
- 2½ cups plain flour or all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 quantity of pistachio buttercream Recipe available here
- 1 orange, zested
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175C/155C Fan) and prepare two 7" or 8" round cake tins.
- In a mix large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.
- Add the mascarpone, pistachio paste and vanilla, beating until well blended.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cardamom into the mascarpone mixture and beat until just combined.
- Divide the batter evenly into the two prepared baking tins, smooth the tops and place in the centre of the preheated oven. Bake for about 1 hour, checking regularly after 45 minutes for a toothpick inserted in the centre to come out clean.
- Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for a couple of minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to continue cooling while you prepare your frosting. For pistachio buttercream see the recipe here.
- Place one cake layer on a clean dish or bake plate. Use about a third of the pistachio buttercream to frost the top of your first layer of cake, then cover in the zest from one orange and top with the second layer of cake. Use the remaining buttercream to frost the top and sides of the cake.
Mr Blancmange
Possibly your best yet! A great one for your 100th post