Erin Fox
Baking with ground nuts is so much fun compared to using flour. But there is a little flour included in this recipe to help the cake rise. This cake is also delicious made with hazelnuts and orange zest instead of the pistachios and lemon. You can make the cakes without the icing too if you prefer.
Makes 12 mini bundt cakes or one round eight-inch cake.
Cake
- 170g pistachios
- 75g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 200g golden caster sugar
- 175g butter softened
- Four eggs
- zest and juice of one lemon.
Syrup
- Juice of two lemons
- 100g granulated sugar.
Icing
- Juice of one lemon
- 100g icing sugar.
First, preheat the oven to 170 degrees for fan ovens. Grease a tray of mini bundt tins and lightly dust the bases with plain flour.
Scatter the pistachios on a roasting tray and place in the oven for five minutes. Remove them from the oven and leave aside to cool. Once they are cool, roughly grind them in a food processor.
Meanwhile, cream the butter and the sugar with the lemon zest for five minutes. In a separate bowl, sift in the flour and baking powder.
Lightly beat the eggs and gradually add to the butter and sugar, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour and then the ground pistachios and lemon juice.
Divide the mixture into the mini bundt tins, filling each one about two thirds full. Place in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until a knife emerges clean when you prick the centre of one of the cakes.
While the cakes are baking, make the syrup. Gently heat the sugar and lemon juice in a pan until the sugar has dissolved. When the cakes have been removed from the oven, prick them all over with a wooden skewer and brush the tops with the syrup.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. You may need to use a knife to gently ease them out of their tins.
While the cakes are cooling, start making the icing.
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Roll the lemon to release the juices and then cut in half and squeeze the juice into the bowl of icing sugar.
Whisk until everything is combined and no lumps remain.
Turn the cakes the right way up onto a wire rack and place a sheet of baking parchment underneath.
Drizzle the icing all over the tops of the cakes and let it spill down the sides.
Chop the remaining pistachios, and scatter them over the tops of the cakes.