I’ve been drooling over this cake for a very very long time. Somehow it looked intimidating, is it just because it’s dessert with olive oil in it? Silly me. I have to admit the olive oil taste isn’t very present in the final product, but I guess you would need to use great quality olive oil for it to overpower all the other tastes, the kind you come across in a small village in Tuscany. Unfortunately this weekend, I wasn’t in Tuscany, I was home in Paris (not too shabby still) and didn’t spend a lot of time running around the city to get *the* olive oil. I figured mine would do, and it did. The batter had a pretty strong olive oil fragrance though, which got me worried it would be too olive-y. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In the end what you get is a moist pistachio cake and orange frosting with a twist. Orange and olive oil are a great pairing, it’s like an Andalusian landscape. Which I love. Which makes me want to see the sun and speak Spanish. Soon.
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Olive oil pistachio cake with orange frosting
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 35-45 minutes
Ingredients:
Cake:
- 1/2 cup raw pistachio
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- juice of one orange
- zest of 1/2 orange
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup milk
Frosting:
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/3 cup (3 oz) cream cheese
- pulp from one orange (the one you’ve used for the cake)
- a few drops of orange food coloring (optional)
Directions:
1. Cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a loaf pan, set aside. Toast raw pistachios in a pan over medium heat for a few minutes. Place pistachios in blender or food processor and pulse 3 times for 1-2 secondes, until they are chopped but not quite powdered yet. In a large bowl, combine chopped pistachios, flour and baking powder.
2. In a medium bowl, beat together eggs and sugar. Add in orange zest and orange juice, then oil and milk. Combine this mixture to the flour mixture, and mix until well incorporated. Pour the batter into the greased pan, then bake for 35-45 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs.
3. Icing: Cream butter and confectioner’s sugar. Add in cream cheese and beat until just incorporated. Stir in the orange pulp and the food coloring if you’re using it. Spread on chilled cake. Decorate with a few chopped peanuts.
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My tips:
- Don’t overbeat the icing, or it will be too soft. If you make it before the cake has cooled down, store it in the fridge while you wait.
- If you want the taste of orange to be more present in the cake, use some of the orange pulp in the batter as well, and add the zest of one whole orange.
Source: slightly adapted from Je veux être bonne
