Niki Louca from My Greek Kitchen shares her favourite recipe for lime pistachio cake with The Greek Herald. You can follow her on Instagram @mygreekkitchen for more!
Ingredients:
- 2 large or 3 medium size zucchinis
- 2 limes zested
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½ cups caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
- ½ cup pistachio kernels finely chopped
- ¾ cup almond meal
- 2 cups S.R. flour
- 2 tsp ground cardamon, sifted
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
Ingredients for the lime glaze
- 60g unsalted butter
- Juice from 1 lime
- 1 cup pure icing sugar – sifted
- Extra ½ cup finely chopped pistachios.
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 180C fan force.
- Brush a fluted deep 22 cm ring tin (bundt tin) with softened butter and dust with flour.
- Grate the zucchini using the large hole on a grater – do not strain zucchini. Set aside.
- Finely grate the rind from 2 limes. Set aside.
- Sift the flour, cardamon, cinnamon and cloves into a bowl. Set aside.
- Place the oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla paste and lime rind into the bowl of a stand-alone mixer. Using the balloon whisk, whisk till mixture is thick and well combined (3-4 minutes).
- Add the almond meal, the sifted flour and spices and whisk till just mixed thru – 30 seconds. Don’t overbeat the batter at this stage as it will deflate the mixture if you over do it. Using a wooden spoon, add the zucchini and pistachios and mix till combined, making sure batter at the bottom of bowl is thoroughly mixed.
- Pour into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for approximately 50-55 minutes. If it browns too quickly on top, cover it with some baking paper to stop it from burning. Insert a skewer to check if cooked and also check to see if cake has pulled slightly from the sides of the tin – another indication that its ready.
- Once cooked, take it out of the oven and let it rest in the tin for 10-15 minutes. Then, turn it over onto a cooling rack till completely cold.
- While waiting for cake to completely cool down, prepare the Lime glaze. Place the butter and lime juice into a small/medium pan.
- Stir over a low heat till the butter melts. Add the icing sugar and stir to combine. Return to heat and stir for 1 minute. Allow to cool slightly and pour over the cooled cake.
- Decorate with extra finely chopped pistachios and serve.
Cake keeps up to 5 days and is suitable for freezing. This cake took an hour and 5 minutes in my oven to cook (I do have an older oven. Be guided by your oven as to how long the cake needs to be cooked).
Niki Louca runs cooking classes in Melbourne. For more or to book classes visit My Greek Kitchen at www.mygreekkitchen.com.au or Instagram @mygreekkitchen. You can email Niki at: niki@mygreekkitchen.com.au.
