By tradition, a cake is baked for any occasion . “Pancho”, “Drunken Cherry”, “Snickers”, “Three Chocolates”, “Tallinn” - who does not know these legendary desserts? However, if you are already a little tired of the classics, it is worth trying a new, more original and exotic taste that can become a real sensation in the holiday menu - especially if you cook it from the usual, ordinary products. A great example of such a dessert is a pistachio cake with an amazing natural green biscuit.
Three layer cake
This recipe will appeal to experienced housewives who want to please loved ones and guests with a new masterpiece of culinary art. Delicate sponge cake with freshly chopped pistachios, decorated with delicious glaze from cream cheese and fresh blackberries, will appeal to all lovers of sweets.
In time, cooking takes about three hours, including baking a biscuit and cooking glaze. The set of products is designed for 12-14 servings.
Three Layer Cake Ingredients
For the glaze you will need:
- 1.5 cups of sugar;
- a third of a cup of flour;
- 1.5 cups of milk;
- a third of a cup of cream;
- three quarters of a cup of butter brought to room temperature;
- 170 g of cream cheese, brought to room temperature;
- 3 tablespoons of honey;
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (vanilla sugar) .
For biscuit:
- 1 cup peeled, fried and salted pistachios;
- 3 cups flour;
- a quarter cup of corn starch;
- 1 tablespoon of baking powder;
- 1 teaspoon of table soda;
- half a teaspoon of salt;
- 1 cup butter;
- 2 cups of sugar;
- 1 chicken egg;
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla (vanilla sugar);
- one and a half cups of milk;
- 3 egg whites.
For decoration:
How to make icing
Glaze is the main decoration of this dessert, so carefully follow the instructions - and your pistachio cake will be great not only in taste, but also in appearance.
- Gently mix sugar with flour in a small saucepan, then add milk and cream, whisk with a submersible blender. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens and begins to boil (approximately fifteen minutes after the start of heating). Pour the glaze blank into a bowl and cover it with cling film, pressing the film to the surface of the mixture. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for at least four hours, or better at night. While the mixture is cooling, bake the sponge cake that the cake will consist of. Pistachio sponge cake will be ready for assembly after cooling - while it is baking, you can finish the preparation of glaze.
- Place the chilled glaze mixture in the mixer bowl and beat at low speed. Add the butter one tablespoon at a time. Then stir in the cream cheese, which must first be divided into six portions to ensure uniform stirring. Increase mixer speed and beat until smooth. Add honey and vanilla sugar and beat until smooth.
Making biscuit
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (set to 170 degrees if you use a pan painted in dark color). Lubricate the bottom of three pans with a diameter of about 20 centimeters, then sprinkle with flour. You can bake cakes separately, but this option will take much longer - you do not want to spend several hours on one cake? Pistachio or not - dessert will not bring any pleasure to the cook, if it takes too much strength.
- Combine flour, corn starch, baking powder, soda, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
- Grind the pistachios with a food processor or a blender, take two tablespoons from the resulting chopped nuts and add to a bowl with dry ingredients. Continue chopping the remaining pistachios until they are powder. Add the powder to a mixture of dry ingredients.
- Beat the butter in the bowl of the electric mixer for two minutes. Add sugar and continue whisking until the mixture turns into light flakes. Stir in the whole chicken egg and vanilla sugar.
Second phase
- Knead the dough in three different portions, adding the dry ingredients and milk to the whipped butter. Knead each serving fully before proceeding with the next.
- Beat egg whites in a separate bowl. Combine them with the dough and mix gently until a homogeneous consistency is obtained. You've got an almost finished cake - the pistachio hue will be noticeable already at this stage.
- Pour the dough into three cooked pans and carefully align the tops of the biscuits. Bake for 28-32 minutes or check readiness with a wooden toothpick. Leave the biscuits to cool in the pans for ten minutes, then remove them from the oven and cool completely.
How to make a cake
Pistachio cake is assembled according to the same principles as any other dessert based on biscuit cakes.
- Using a large knife with a serrated blade, cut off the tops of the cake layers so that they become equally even.
- Put one sponge cake on a large plate or special dish and cover it with icing. Place the second biscuit on top and glaze again. Repeat with the third cake, then gently add a thin layer of glaze over the sides of the cake. Keep the dessert in the refrigerator for thirty minutes, then remove and cover again with the remaining glaze. If you want to use glaze for decoration, leave the required amount of the finished mixture and pour it into a confectionery syringe. You can decorate a pistachio cake with either chopped or whole green nuts and berries (the blackberry looks especially nice).
- Before serving, keep dessert in the refrigerator.
Strawberry Pistachio Cake
Who would have thought that unsalted pistachios go well with sweet berries? Raspberries and strawberries perfectly emphasize the specific taste of nuts and give the finished dish an exquisite appearance. To make such a cake yourself, you will need:
- 200 g of pistachios;
- 275 g of brown sugar;
- 250 g butter;
- 3 chicken eggs;
- 275 g pancake flour;
- 75 g of Greek yogurt (non-fat).
For strawberry glaze, take 200 g of butter and 300 g of powdered sugar, as well as 300 g of small strawberries, some of which will be used to decorate the dessert.
Pistachio cake with strawberries is a wonderful decoration for any festive table. Cooking takes 1 hour 15 minutes, a set of products is designed for 12 servings. One serving contains 670 kilocalories.
Detailed recipe
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and cover the square baking dish (approximately 20x20 cm in size) with thin paper. Put 150 g of pistachios in the harvester, add half the sugar and chop finely. Pour the chopped nuts into a large bowl, add the remaining sugar and beat the butter with a blender until the consistency becomes creamy. Beat in eggs, add flour and Greek yogurt, and continue to beat until smooth. Pour some milk into the mixture if necessary.
- Gently pour the mixture into a mold using a tablespoon, and bake a biscuit for 45-50 minutes. Check for readiness with a wooden toothpick. Cool the biscuit for 15 minutes, then turn over onto a serving plate and remove the baking paper. You almost got the finished pistachio cake - the recipe is complemented only with icing.
- To prepare the icing, beat the butter until white. Gradually combine it with powdered sugar while continuing to whisk. When the mixture thickens, add four strawberries and beat again until the berries are completely chopped. Combine the icing with the remaining powdered sugar. If the mass is too thick, beat another strawberry.
- Cover the top and sides of the cake with freshly prepared icing. Finely chop the remaining pistachios and decorate the edges of the cake with them. Immediately before serving, finely chop the remaining strawberries and gently lay the slices in even rows over the glaze. Each next row should go in the opposite direction relative to the previous one.
In a similar way bake a pistachio cake with raspberries.
Cream
To make a pistachio cake, it is not necessary to include everyone's favorite green nuts in a biscuit dough. You can not even bake a biscuit, but just buy ready-made cakes in the store - and soak them with mixed pistachio cream yourself. On the Internet you can find many recipes for nut cream. An interested reader is offered the simplest and easiest to prepare option.
You will need:
- 100 g mascarpone;
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped pistachios;
- 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar;
- 3 tablespoons of thick cream (48% fat).
Pistachio cream for the cake is prepared very quickly: just combine all the ingredients in a bowl and knead until smooth. Smear the cakes with cream - and the wonderful dessert is ready!
Useful Tips
- Pistachios are sometimes difficult to clean. Take half the shell from the already peeled nut and pry it with the unyielding shell of a new pistachio - the nut will easily crack.
- If you bake a cake “from scratch” and want to present it to someone as a birthday present, be sure to check if the birthday boy is allergic to nuts, and in particular to pistachios. Unfortunately, delicious green nuts are an extremely allergenic product - it is better to take care of the donee's health in advance.
- If you use granulated sugar, remember that the icing with such a component must first be boiled, and then completely cooled - only after that you can fill it with a pistachio-chocolate cake or any other dessert.
Reviews
Not all people like the oven - someone just doesn’t make very good cakes and pies, and someone prefers store products. If you want to buy a ready-made cake with pistachios, it is better to read reviews about this dessert in advance. Some large stores and retail chains offer baked goods and pastries, prepared according to their own, unique recipes. For example, the “Malika” pistachio cake, which became famous due to an interesting combination of a moderately moist curd biscuit with a delicious nut cream, gained some fame. Be prepared, however, to spend a considerable amount on the finished dessert: pistachios are quite expensive, and therefore the purchase of factory desserts containing these nuts requires significant financial costs. Taste, however, justifies any expenses: a real pistachio cake is a real pleasure for a true gourmet.