Pistachio Cake with Lemon Glaze – Fistikli, limonlu kek

Posted by Ozlem on May 8, 2011 in Cakes and Desserts, Uncategorized | 3 comments

Merhaba:)
It has been a while since I last posted and a lot happened – the Royal Wedding, a wonderful trip to Paris – my 40th birthday treat:), my parent’s visit to England; I look forward to sharing all. First, a wonderful cake that came to my way, thanks to Tori Ritchie and her wonderful website/blog www.tuesdayrecipe.com, where she shares simple, delicious, wonderful recipes. This cake is originally from the River Cafe cookbook, and the authors run the wonderful Italian restaurant, River Cafe in London. The cake combines my favorite ingredients; pistachio, lemon, vanilla bean and almonds, which are commonly used in Turkish cooking too. It is a wonderfully rich cake, a real treat with tea or coffee. I made this cake for our “Royal Wedding Tea” at my sister-in-law’s, Judith’s party. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did and Happy Mother’s Day to All!:).

serves 8
prep time: 25 minutes bake time: 50 minutes

100 gr/2 sticks unsalted butter, plus additional for greasing pan, at room temperature
1 lemon, preferably Meyer lemon
1 vanilla bean
6 1/2oz/1 cup sugar
60gr/2oz slivered almonds
90gr/3oz shelled unsalted pistachios
4 large eggs, at room temperature
60gr/2oz all-purpose flour
Glaze
50gr/1 3/4oz shelled unsalted pistachios
45gr/1 1/2oz sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 170C/325F. Grease bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan with some butter and line bottom with a circle of parchment paper.

With a zester, grate the lemon peel (reserve lemon). With the tip of a sharp paring knife, split the vanilla bean down the center and scrape out the seeds. In a food processor, pulse the sugar with the peel and vanilla bean. Transfer to a bowl. In the same processor bowl, pulse the almonds and pistachios until finely ground, but do not let go to paste.

With an electric mixer, beat the butter and lemon-vanilla sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides the bowl between each addition. Beat in the lemon-vanilla sugar, then with a spatula fold in the flour and the nuts. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and shake to even it, but do not worry about smoothing the top. Bake until a skewer comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Set on a rack to cool for 10 minutes, then loosen edges of cake with a kitchen knife and remove sides of pan. Invert cake and remove bottom of pan and peel off parchment paper, then invert right side up on a serving plate.

For glaze, squeeze juice from reserved lemon. Roughly chop pistachios by hand. In a very small pot, bring the lemon juice to a boil with the sugar and cook until syrupy. Stir in the pistachios and pour over the cake. Cut into wedges to serve.

Afiyet Olsun!