A Middle Eastern-inspired cake made with freshly ground pistachios and coconut and soaked in a gorgeous rose syrup. Creative cake-baking just for the fun of it on a dark, dreary, rainy Autumn day.
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I made a cake!
I made a cake and I’m really rather chuffed at how well it turned out. You see, I’m currently going through an ’empty the store-cupboards’ phase in preparation for stocking up for winter. The fact is that I’d been so incredibly busy this Spring/Summer with cycle training for my epic bikepacking trip that I hadn’t done as much cooking and baking as I usually do, and many of the ingredients in my store-cupboard are starting to now reach their best before/use by dates.
Creativity is required.
I’m on a mission to clear out these cupboards. While sifting through my pantry shelves the other day I found half a bag of salted pistachio nuts in their shells, and so I put them where they are supposed to be – not in the pantry but in the cupboard where I keep my baking supplies (I’m going to blame my husband for the misplacement of said bag). I put the salted pistachios next to the half a bag of unsalted roasted pistachio nuts in my baking supply basket. Both of which will be out of date at the end of November.
Bulgarian rose jam
Several months ago I was sent a rather substantial hamper of food from Bulgaria from a client. There were loads of weird and wonderful ingredients – some of which were used right away – some of which ended up in the bin because our local shipping company kept a hold of the hamper in their warehouse for five full days before delivering it to me so the fresh stuff was ruined (incidentally, someone had signed for it as ‘delivered’ when it was still in Aberdeen!) – and some of which ended up on my pantry shelves to be used when inspiration struck.
Two of the hamper items that ended up in the cupboard were a jar of home made Bulgarian rose jam and a packet of gorgeous little dried rose petals.
The jam was quite runny with beautiful delicate translucent rose petals suspended in a sugary syrup. One thing led to another, the rose syrup, the pistachios needing used up, and a large packet of coconut flakes taking up space in my cupboard – I quite fancied making a cake. Something with coconut shavings sprinkled over the top.
It only took a few seconds to pulverise 90 grams of shelled pistachio nuts into flour for this cake in my high speed blender. I then added the remaining dry ingredients and gave it a few seconds’ blitz to break down the coconut and combine it all before adding it to the wet ingredients in a bowl.
Decorating the cake
Dissolving the rose jam with a little hot water meant I could drizzle it over the top of the still-warm cake so that the rose fragrance and delicious stickiness soaked into the top. I pressed some more chopped pistachios, coconut shavings and some dried rose petals onto the top and left it to cool.
So…. incredibly… good!
It’s almost a savoury sweet cake with the ground pistachios, but the taste and texture are simply fantastic. Plus, it’s got a rather appealing green tint to it which I find rather attractive. It reminds me a bit of baklava with its’ nutty tasty and sugar syrup stickiness.
If you want to make your own rose syrup for this Choclette over at Tin & Thyme has a tried and tested recipe you could use.
Please excuse the dark, rainy day photos. Summer is officially over. We’re starting our rapid descent into the long, dark winter days up here at 60 degrees north. Someone forgot to tell the sun that it was daytime yesterday. Dark, heavy clouds loomed over us for the whole day. It finished with some rather spectacular heavy rain and thunderstorms in the evening.
This was the perfect opportunity to switch off and unplug the devices. So I curled up on the couch with a slice of cake, a cup of tea and a good book. Dragonfly in Amber, book 2 of the Outlander series, in case you wanted to know!
Recipe Difficulty Levels
Easy
Requires basic cooking skills and ingredients you most likely already have in your kitchen.
Moderate
Requires more experience, preparation and/or cooking time. You may have to source special ingredients.
Challenging
Recipes requiring more advanced skills and experience and maybe some special equipment.
Pistachio and Coconut Cake with Rose Syrup
Ingredients
for the pistachio & coconut cake
- 40 grams butter
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 90 grams pistachio nuts shelled weight
- 25 grams desiccated coconut
- 65 grams plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch Himalayan crystal salt
- 2 medium free-range eggs
- 115 grams granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp plain natural yoghurt
for the topping
- 3 tbsp rose syrup or jam
- 1 tbsp hot water to thin the jam
- 1 tbsp pistachio nuts coarsely chopped
- 2 tbsp coconut flakes
- dried rose petals to decorate
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Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 170 C/ 160 C (fan)/ gas mark 3 and grease and line a 6 inch deep cake tin with a round of baking paper.
- Over a low heat melt 40 grams butter and 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil together and set aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- Blitz 90 grams pistachio nuts in a high-speed blender until fine and add 25 grams desiccated coconut, 65 grams plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1 pinch Himalayan crystal salt. Blitz for another second or two.
- In a medium sized bowl whisk 2 medium free-range eggs with 115 grams granulated sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy and forms ribbons when you lift the whisk up. This will take a few minutes if you're using arm power.
- Add the melted butter to the eggs along with 2 tbsp plain natural yoghurt and stir until combined.
- Fold in the nut mixture until well incorporated and spoon into the prepared tin.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes until light golden. A wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the cake will come out clean when it is finished.
- While the cake is still warm use the wooden skewer to poke holes evenly around the top.
- Dissolve 3 tbsp rose syrup or jam in a 1 tbsp hot water, if needed, and spoon over the top of the cake. Press half of 1 tbsp pistachio nuts, chopped and 2 tbsp coconut flakes into the top of the cake while the jam is still sticky, so some of it sticks to the top.
- Leave the cake to cool in the tin for at least 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Sprinkle the remaining topping and the dried rose petals over the cake and serve with a cup of afternoon tea.
Shetland Seafood Linguine
Wow! It is delicious and looks like beautiful. It is healthy too. I want to make it at home with follow your instruction for my lover family members. Thanks for your awesome recipe.
This is so lovely! Perfect for afternoon tea! Wish I had a slice now.
This looks just heavenly!
What a lovely cake, it looks just delicious and your pictures are beautiful!
Sweet cake is not my favourite. But this cake looks really lovely. I really love how you decorate the cake, and I think those who like cake will absolutely love this recipe. Thanks for sharing, Elizabeth,
I love anything with rose in but I do know it’s a bit of an acquired taste. I tasted one at a cake club meeting a couple of months ago which I thought was delicious but the person who made it thought it was awful!
this cake looks awful! i love the way you decorate it. seems like the flavor is special. i must try it out. maybe this is an ideal recipe for my daughter’s birthday. it’s so sweet. thanks for sharing, Elizabeth. 🙂
Exotic cake with the scent & taste combos. I’ve always enjoyed rose water incorporated into desserts- a touch of class! Thanks.
Oh wow, what a cake! Your presentation is very artistic, I love the rose petals and the delicate rose buds 🙂
This cake looked beautiful! I love the idea of combining pistachio, coconut and light, fragrant rose.
What a beautiful cake with amazing flavours. Perfect!
Not sure where the ‘dark rainy day photos are? They look brighter than mine in the height of summer!
Wow, that’s a total stunner Elizabeth. I adore pistachio cakes, but hardly every make them as pistachios are so expensive. Your topping looks lush and the flavours are right up my street, but it’s the texture that is really calling to me. I know that cake is delicious.
Thanks for the shout out for my rose syrup 🙂
I have the same situation with forgotten items in my cupboards – loads tend to be mostly empty bags of nuts and half used bars of chocolate. I know – terrible. I need a massive clear out! This cake looks and sounds amazing I can almost smell it! Lovely use of the rose jam.
That looks amazing and your plans for re-organising in the kitchen makes me think I need to get my finger out and do it too. BTW did you substitute some of the flour for nut flour? I’ve not tried doing that.
So beautiful! I love the flavor combo. 🙂
Thanks Raia – those flavours really do complement each other well.
This just looks amazing! What with reading this and catching up on bake off, i feel like i should do some baking this weekend!
There’s something very therapeutic with baking, I feel, especially if it’s just for fun. Then you get to eat it too! 😀
The rose syrup on this sounds so good! Very elegant!
It is a rather posh ingredient, isn’t it!
What a beautiful cake! The rose syrup sounds amazing!
Thank you Jen 🙂
Your pictures are soooo gorgeous! What a deliciously exotic cake! The flavours are just simply breathtaking!
Aw thank you! I was feeling rather vexed that they were such dark, grey rainy day photos, but I’ve vowed not to let poor weather stop me from sharing recipes!
An awfully beautiful cake it is, too! Thee photos are fabulous!
I admire your cleaning out the cupboards effort. Mine a chuck full of “I don’t know what”!! I should follow your lead and sort it all out. sigh. that’s a great rainy day project I think.
Aw thank you! I’m having such a huge clear out – I’m filling bags for the charity shop too with things – there’s far too much stuff in my house!
Wow that cake!!! Love pistachio nuts. Looks delicious X
Thank you 😀 Me too!
Sounds wonderful… I love rose flavours in baking. Do you keep chia seeds in your cupboard?? Your comment about a lack of eggs reminded me of a similar situation recently: I was one egg short for a cake so decided to try the chia seed replacement trick (1tbsp ground seeds and 2tbsp water for each egg, into fridge for 20 mins) and it was MAGIC! Perfect results in the finished product.
I do have chia seeds – a few bags of them, in fact! I’ll have to try your trick sometime.