pistachio cake with lime syrup

pistachio cake with lime syrup

• 19 May 2025

Last year I took out a copy of 'In Belinda's Kitchen' by Belinda Jeffrey from the library and I bookmarked a few recipes including this one for a pistachio and lime syrup cake. Earlier in the year I paid $7.50 for 3 of the tiniest limes you've ever seen and I didn't want to repeat the experience so I've been waiting for lime season to arrive. The cake was originally made with lemon syrup, so if limes are a bit pricey where you live, just use lemons instead.

I love baking with pistachios and I normally have a packet stored in my fridge. You'll need to make your own pistachio meal for this recipe and you want a fine meal like almond meal. You are not looking to make pistachio paste. I use a mini food processor to make nut meal and I process the nuts in 30 second bursts. Belinda suggests pulsing the nuts in the food processor with a tablespoon of flour from the recipe, as the flour helps prevent them becoming oily and forming a paste. Michael James suggests freezing the nuts before grinding them. I did both and I ended up with a finely ground nut meal.  

Here's the recipe for you, which makes a 17cm round cake, adapted from here. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Pistachio and lime syrup cake 

Cake
30g GF or regular plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
50g pistachios, finely ground 

finely grated zest of 2 limes
60g almond meal
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g caster sugar
2 x 60g eggs, at room temperature

To serve

Rich cream or thick Greek-style yoghurt

Syrup and topping 
45g caster sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) fresh lime juice, strained
45g pistachios, roughly chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional. Butter a 17-cm round cake tin. Line the base with buttered baking paper then dust the tin with flour. 

Tip the flour, baking powder, ground pistachios, lime zest and almond meal into a medium-sized bowl. Whisk them together with a balloon whisk for a minute or so, then set the bowl aside.

Put the butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer (or use a hand-held electric beater) and beat them on medium speed for about 4 minutes, stopping and scraping down the sides occasionally, until the mixture looks creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, allowing each egg to be absorbed before adding the next. (Don't worry if the mixture looks a little curdled after adding the last egg it will come together again when you add the dry ingredients.) Tip in the flour mixture and mix everything together on low speed until it is just combined be careful not to over-mix it, or the cake may be a bit tough. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top.

Bake the cake for 45-50 minutes, or until it springs back when lightly pressed in the centre and a fine skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Transfer it to a wire rack and leave it to cool a little in the tin.

When the cake is lukewarm, make the syrup. To do this, put the sugar and lime juice into a small saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the chopped pistachios, increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil.

Turn the cake out onto a serving plate and peel away the baking paper. Slowly spoon the hot pistachio and lime syrup evenly over the top, then leave the cake to cool completely. Serve with softly whipped cream or yoghurt.

I shared the cake with my neighbours and in return I was given a container of pumpkin and lentil soup. Gotta love my neighbours.

 

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian