Pistachio Cake
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Note: this cake is best made one day ahead of time
For crumble
- 300g/10.6ozs plain all purpose flour
- 100g/3.5ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 165g/5.8ozs butter, cold and cubed
- 2 eggs, room temperature
For Filling
- 500g/1.1lbs smooth ricotta
- 150g/5ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 150g/5ozs pistachio cream* see note above
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
For Candied Pistachios
- 100g/3.5ozs pistachios
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 1 tablespoon egg white
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- Pinch salt
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 160C/320F fan forced. Line a 20cm/8inch springform tin on the base and sides.
Step 2 - Place the flour, sugar and baking powder in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add butter and eggs and pulse to combine. It should become little clumps. Take 2/3 of the mixture and press it down on the base of the tin and form a smooth base. Set the 1/3 remaining aside in a bowl.
Thermomix directions: set to speed #4.5 for 20 seconds.
Step 3 - In the same food processor bowl add the ricotta, sugar, pistachio paste, egg and vanilla and pulse until smooth. Thermomix directions: set to speed #4 for 20 seconds. Pour over the base and smooth out. Then add clumps of the remaining dough on top covering most of the top but letting bits of green peek through. Place on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes.
Step 4 - Meanwhile make the candied pistachio mixture. In a bowl mix the pistachios, sugar, egg white, vanilla and salt. When the cake has had the 30 minutes in step 4 remove from the oven (it should still be wobbly and not completely set). Spoon the candied pistachio mixture across the top distributing it over the cake. Bake for an additional 13-15 minutes until crunchy and the centre is no longer wobbly. Cool on the bench and then cover and refrigerate and serve cold.
Personal Note
While the cake is simple, something recently perplexed us. We took a break from home renovations to let our finances recover but we had one thing that we needed to do: the main bedroom. The woman that owned this house lived alone so the bedroom built in robes were not huge as they only had to accommodate a single person's worth of clothes. We knew that we had to re-do them and that was the next project because quite honestly there were piles of clothes on the floor as we had run out of space even with two sets of drawers and a shoe rack.
Last night we were busy clearing out the clothes so that our builder Peter could install the new walk in robe. I say "we" but it was really Mr NQN. I get really bad allergies from dust and he had to clear out all of the clothes and shoes.
"Oh my god what is this?" he said his head deep in the upper cupboard.
My eyes widened as there has been no shortage of surprises from the former owner. "What now?" I said sighing.
"I don't know what the hell this is," he said presenting a leather wrapped stick with a crystal at the end from behind his back.
"A wand?" I said, just thinking about the crystal.
I put it on my Instagram stories and Threads and so far the consensus is that it's a magic wand. Then another friend Lana (who had just bought a house) told me about how she had found her bra inserts (aka chicken cutlets) near the water tank and a mass of wax and pubic hair at her house!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you have any other ideas about what it might be? What odd things have you found when you moved into a new place?