Pistachio Cake Recipe
Fluffy pistachio cake that actually tastes like pistachio! No artificial flavors, just real pistachios.
Servings: 12 slices
Ingredients
Pistachio Cake
- 227 g (1 cup) Unsalted Butter, room temperature
- 360 g (1¾ cups) Granulated Sugar, (Caster sugar)
- 375 g (3 cups) All-purpose Flour, (Plain Flour)
- 2 teaspoon (2 teaspoon) Baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (½ teaspoon) Baking soda
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Salt
- 3 (3) Large Eggs, room temperature
- 80 g (⅓ cup) Sour Cream, room temperature
- 240 ml (1 cup) Whole Milk, room temperature
- 80 g (5 tablespoon) Pistachio Paste, homemade or store-bought
- ½ teaspoon (½ teaspoon) Almond Extract
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Vanilla Extract
- 100 g (⅔ cup) Pistachios, roughly chopped
Pistachio Buttercream
- 1 batch (1 batch) Frosting of choice, I use Italian buttercream
- 40 g (3 tablespoon) Pistachio Paste
Instructions
- If making your own pistachio paste, make it ahead of time so it has a chance to cool. You can also make it up to 4 weeks in advance and store in the fridge. Alternatively, you can find pistachio paste online if you'd rather not make it at home.
- Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C (160°C fan-assisted) and grease two 8-inch cake pans. I also like to add parchment paper circles on the bottom to avoid sticking.
- Cream the butter, sugar, and pistachio paste together until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time until incorporated.
- Sift the dry ingredients together, then add half of the mixture to the cake batter. and mix in slowly.
- Add the wet ingredients, then mix until completely incorporated.
- Stir in the other half of the dry ingredients until there are no more lumps - but be careful not to overmix.
- Fold the chopped pistachios into the batter.
- Divide the cake batter between the prepared cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs.
- Allow to cool completely before removing from the cake pans.
- Once cooled, fill and decorate the cake with the frosting of your choice. You can turn most recipes into a pistachio frosting by adding a few tablespoons of pistachio paste right at the end. My favorite frostings to use on this cake are:- Italian Meringue Buttercream- Swiss Meringue Buttercream- French Buttercream- Russian Buttercream
Notes
If you are buying pistachio paste rather than making your own, make sure you get pistachio paste or pistachio butter - NOT pistachio cream. The ingredients should be 100% pistachios. See the post above for more info on this.