Desserts & Baking

Vanilla cake with pistachio icing

8
Easy
15 minutes
35 minutes

As good as they are on their own, or set in a slab of caramel, nuts can add a whole new dimension to a meal. This decadent vanilla cake with pistachio icing can even be enjoyed at breakfast!

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Ingredients

Method
    For the cake:

  • 240 g flour
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 2 1/2 t baking powder
  • 1/4 t bicarbonate of soda
  • 150 g sugar
  • 2 free-range eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup Ideal milk
  • 115 g butter, melted and at room temperature
  • 1 T vanilla paste
  • For the icing:

  • 50 g sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 100 g shelled pistachios
  • a pinch salt
  • 1/2 cup cream
  • icing sugar, for dusting

Method

Ingredients

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20 cm springform cake tin. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and sugar. Make a well in the centre.

2. In a small bowl whisk together the eggs, Ideal milk, butter and vanilla. Fold the wet mixture into the flour – a thick batter will form.

3. Spoon the batter into the cake tin and bake for 15–20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

4. While the cake is baking, prepare the icing. Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan until a maple-coloured caramel is formed. Place the pistachios on a tray lined with greaseproof paper. Pour over the caramel and allow the caramel to set.

5. Once set, chop into pieces and blend with the salt and cream until a smooth icing is formed. Serve the cake with a dollop of the pistachio icing, dusted with icing sugar.

Cook's note: Soak the leftover cake in a syrup and serve with fresh berries and crème fraîche, or more Ideal milk.

Find more cake recipes here. 

Photographs: Jan Ras
Food assistant: Marcelle De Wet 

Bianca Strydom

Recipe by: Bianca Strydom

Prue Leith-trained chef Bianca Strydom cut her teeth working in some of the country's top fine dining restaurants – including former Eat Out number one restaurants The Restaurant at Waterkloof and La Colombe – before joining TASTE in 2018. Her favourite recipes to develop? Boujee breakfast recipes. Follow her on Instagram @biancast__.

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