Pistachio Cream Cake
We were in Central Newfoundland for a corporate event. This time it was a paint and sip with my art brand, we provided loads of fun and lots of laughs to a room full of people. It was a great day. We decided to go to a fancy restaurant for supper, to treat the team for a job well done. As usual we did our due diligence and asked the proper questions to determine which meal was best for our way of eating. Then we settled back in to enjoy the company and the meal.
As we chatted and ate, I couldn’t help but notice the dessert cart. I don’t usually pay heed to the cart as there is rarely anything on there that suits our way of eating; Most times I just consider it to be what we call a in our home a ‘belly-ouch’.
This night there was a very intriguing greenish colour dessert on the cart that caught my eye. I knew it was a belly-ouch but also knew I wanted to create it for our community.
We ordered one for the table and dissected - Tasting and comparing notes. Knowing full well we were gonna pay for it later… but in this case, it had to be done to figure out the flavours. We took one for the team/community.
We started our home version with a green pistachio cake. That proved to be difficult as our natural food colouring doesn’t ‘bake’ well. It’s best added after cooking for best colour. We settled on white cake, green pistachio pudding and vanilla frosting to tie it all together.
While the one we ate was indeed a belly-ouch, the version that we present here is good to go. It’s has become a go to favourite for our farmers market food stall. We hope it becomes a new family favourite.
- Prep Time10 min
- Cook Time30 min
- Total Time40 min
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2 1/2 cups almond flour
- 1 cup powdered sweetener
- 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup water
For the pistachioe cream/pudding
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup powdered sweetener divided
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 3 cups whipping cream
- 2 tsp pistachio extract, we used Olive Nation
- natural green food colouring, we used Color Garden
For the frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 4 oz butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup powdered sweetener, to taste
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
Directions
To make the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease an 11×13 -inch glass pan with parchment paper.
Combine all the dry ingredients, including the sweetener, in a large mixing bowl. Cream in the butter and then whisk in the remaining ingredients.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45- 55 minutes.
Allow the cake to fully cool in the pan then refrigerate.
To make the pistachio cream
In a large glass bowl, whisk the yolks, half of the sweetener, and the salt.
Combine the cream and the remaining sweetener in a medium saucepan.
Heat the cream on a low-medium heat, stirring occasionally until it starts to steam.
Remove from the heat and remove 1 cup of the hot cream.
Drizzle the hot cream slowly into the egg mixture while whisking. Take your time or you will scramble the eggs.
When the egg is tempered, slowly pour the mixture back into the hot cream.
Cook the cream low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until the custard reaches 170° to 175°. Then lower the temperature to low and continue to cook for 5- 7 minutes to thicken the pudding.
Remove from the heat and stir in the extract and colouring and set aside, stirring occasionally as it cools.
To make the frosting
Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together with a hand or stand mixer.
Putting it all together
Place cooled cake at the bottom of your serving dish.
Next spoon on the custard and finally spread or pipe the frosting over the top of the pudding. Garnish with a few pistachios if desired.
We used colour garden natural food colouring. If you can’t find a green food colouring, try making your own with matcha powder, spinach or parsley juice or just go with a natural colour.
Nutrition & Macro Information
- Amount per serving
- Calories0
- % Daily Value*
Its hard to achieve that green cake when using natural food colouring. The natural food colouring don’t bake/cook well and the colour goes off. In this case we used parsley to colour the cake, but by the time we got to the colour we wanted, it was too…. well, parsley-ish. For this reason we went with just the vanilla cake with the green pudding.
If you want to give this a try, boil 1/2 cup fresh parsley (spinach, chlorella, & spirulina will also work) about 2 cups of water and then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for several hours, making sure the pot does not go dry. When the liquid is concentrated and green, strain off the solids,. Discard the solids and use the green liquid as colouring.
Sounds delicious. The next time we have a dinner party or special occasion, I will have to make it. Thanks for sharing.