Pistachio Lemon Syrup Cake (Moist, Easy)

Recipe: Ingredients For Pistachio Syrup Cake Recipe »

This lemon pistachio loaf cake recipe is simple but utterly delicious! Ground pistachios and almonds make up the base of this moist cake spiked with lemon zest. Then a fragrant, zingy lemon syrup is poured over the hot cake so that it is incredibly moist and stays that way for up to a week!

About This Pistachio Lemon Syrup Cake

This lemon pistachio loaf cake recipe comes from a bakery in London called Gail's Bakery. They shared the recipe on Instagram and as soon as I saw how rich and moist (sorry!) it was, I had to try it. It did not disappoint at all! This cake is incredibly delicious and moist and you have to try this at least once.

I made a few changes to their recipe and the cake tin measurement was a bit off and I upped the lemon flavour in the syrup to make it more fragrant with zest and also added vanilla to soften it a little. But it is seriously easy and can be made into muffins, individual cakes or a round cake.

Ingredients For Pistachio Syrup Cake

• Caster sugar - not white sugar and caster or superfine sugar is finer and can melt into the other ingredients better
• Butter- I always use salted butter for extra flavour. Use room temperature butter where a butter knife can cut through the butter easily.
• Eggs - large eggs at room temperature are best for cakes. I usually gently place the eggs in a bowl and cover them in hot water from the tap.
• Lemon zest - wash your lemons well before zesting to remove any waxes or dirt on the fruit.
• Vanilla bean paste or extract - although the flavour is lemon, vanilla adds a really lovely aroma to cakes.
• Pistachios - use raw pistachios and blend these up until fine and powdery, like almond meal.
• Ground almonds - otherwise known as almond meal.
• Cake flour - Cake flour can be bought at the supermarket. You can also make it at home. To make 1 cup/150g/5.2ozs of cake flour replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well. I usually mix up a big batch of this and keep it in a container ready for baking cakes as it produces a softer texture.
• Baking powder - to give the cake a good rise. Check that your baking powder is still in date.

• Salt - fine salt to add flavour and balance to cakes.

• Lemon juice - to flavour the syrup. First zest the lemon and then juice it.

• Pistachios - use shelled pistachios and roast these to bring out their flavour. To roast bake at 180C/350F in a single layer for 7-8 minutes.

• Honey - runny honey is used to drizzle on top of the pistachios on top.

Tips For Making Pistachio Lemon Syrup Cake

1 - This cake is very easy so I don't have many notes on it!

2 - This cake can be made 1-2 days (even 3-4 days) ahead as the syrup keeps it so moist, even after a week!

3 - You can make this with all pistachios or all almonds if that is what you have (although the taste will change somewhat).

4 - I tried this cake with both raw and roasted pistachios in the cake itself and I have to say that it didn't make that much of a difference. Perhaps the raw pistachios gave it a greener colour but there wasn't a massive difference in colour.

5 - Loaf cakes have the habit of sinking in the middle if you open the oven door halfway to turn the cake. So keep this baking the whole time without opening the oven door (you can always peek on it using the oven light).

6 - You can replace the cake flour with gluten free flour if you have a GF flour that you like and trust.

7 - This cake can be kept at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

8 - The loaf size tin was what I had the most trouble with. I ended up using a 21cm long x 7.5cm wide x 9cms high loaf tin (8 inch long x 3 inch wide x 3.5inch tall loaf tin) but using a bake snake to shorten it by 7cms/2.8inches. You can use foil or something else to fill out the extra 7cms/2.8inches to shorten it but the bake snake is really handy for doing that.

Pistachio Lemon Syrup Cake Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 50 minutes concurrently

Serves: 8

Ingredients Needed

Cake Ingredients

• 190g/6.7ozs caster sugar
• 180g/6.3ozs butter (room temp)
• 4 medium eggs (room temp)
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste or extract
• 90g/3.2ozs raw pistachios, blitzed in blender to a crumb (plus extra for decorating)
• 80g/3ozs ground almonds
• 50g/1.7ozs cake flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• large pinch of salt

Syrup ingredients

• 90ml/3.2flozs water
• 150g/5ozs of caster sugar
• 60ml/2.1flozs fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

To decorate

• 50g/1.7ozs toasted pistachios
• 4 tablespoons honey

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 - Line a loaf tin with parchment and set your oven to 160C/320F fan forced or 180C/350F conventional. Fit your mixer with a beater attachment and beat the sugar and butter together until smooth and sugar is dissolved, around 4-5 minutes on medium high speed, scraping down halfway.

Step 2 - Add the eggs one at a time until well incorporated and beating on medium speed while adding the eggs. Add in lemon zest, vanilla, pistachios and almonds and beat in for 20 seconds or until combined. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt and fold these in until just combined (do not overmix).

Step 3 - Pour into the lined loaf tin and bake for 50 mins. Do not open the oven door while it is baking to turn halfway!

Step 4 - When the cake has 5 minutes to go, combine syrup ingredients and heat until sugar is dissolved and the volume is reduced slightly round 10%. It will take around 8-10 minutes on medium heat to make the syrup. Strain the syrup of the lemon zest and keep warm.

Step 5 - Remove cake from oven and allow to sit on the bench for 5 minutes. Then pour half of the hot syrup over the hot cake. Let the cake sit for 10 minutes to absorb the syrup and until the sides of the cake contract and cool; then pour the remaining half of the syrup down the sides of the cake. Allow to cool in the tin completely, then turn out and decorate with pistachios and honey.

Personal Note

Our neighbours Vic and Nicki are away for 6 weeks enjoying the beautiful summer weather in Greece. We always look out for our neighbours houses and usually it's Mr NQN who works in his office at the front of the house that sees and hears all. And while Mr NQN is extremely law abiding, he is also a very keen pilferer of fruit. He routinely takes guavas from the tree outside a nearby business's carpark and will come home with all sorts of fruit that he procures from public land or easy to grab places. He doesn't take it from people's houses or gardens but no fruit on public land is safe.

He saw that Vic and Nicki have a tree full of lemons and he asked if he could take some. Vic answered that he could definitely take as many as he wanted but that the lemons weren't very juicy. Mr NQN went off to their house and filled up a huge bag full of lemons. He brought them back, smiling proudly and trying to lift up his massive bounty.

Nick was right they weren't particularly juicy but they weren't bad at all. In fact I've bought lemons from the shops with less juice than the ones that we got from their tree! And they were actually perfect for this recipe because we need a lot of zest in this recipe and a bit of juice-one massive lemon provided enough zest for this cake and all the juice. As for the rest of these lemons that are currently filling up two drawers in the fridge, I'll just make limoncello out of lemons - an updated version of making lemonade out of lemons!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you take fruit from public land if you see it?