Pistachio Pound Cake

Pistachio has to be one of my all-time favorite flavors so when I saw this version of Tish Boyle's marble pound cake on Kokken69's blog I instantly wanted to replicate it, with just a few tweaks.  I recently bought a bavarian bundt pan but had yet to use it and thought this cake would be the perfect inauguration.  Furthermore I wanted to take another crack at making a cake with a zebra stripe pattern.

Kokken69's adaption calls for using pistachio paste instead of a cocoa mixture to achieve the marble effect.   After finishing a massive macaron order for my brother my supply of pistachio paste was completely exhausted.   Necessity is the mother of invention so I found the next best thing I could, Jell-O instant pistachio pudding mix.  I sifted out the pistachio nut bits before mixing the powder with 3 cups of the vanilla cake batter.

Unfortunately the zebra pattern I was after wasn't happening.  Rather than creating stripes, the two colors of batter blended together.   But, the cake itself was really delicious with a moist, tender crumb.   The pudding mix didn't provide nearly enough pistachio flavor so next time I'm going to use paste and also stick with the marble design!

Pistachio Pound Cake (adapted by Kokken69 from Tish Boyle's "The Cake Book")

342g / 3 cups Cake Flour

2 tsp Baking powder

1/2 tsp Salt

500g / 1.5 cups Castor sugar, divided (Please reduce this to 300g- original recipe is too sweet)

340g / 3 sticks Unsalted butter

1.5 tsp Vanilla Extract

5 large Eggs

120ml (1/2 cup) Whole milk

20g Natural cocao powder (I replaced this with 50g Pistachio paste)

90ml Water

Preheat oven to 325F / 190C. Grease the inside of a 10inch bundt pan and dust with flour.

Sift Cake flour, baking powder and salt and set it aside.

In a mixing bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter at medium speed for 2 minutes until creamy.  Add sugar and continue to cream for 4 mins at medium to high speed.  Add vanilla extract. Add eggs one at a time and mix at medium speed until well mixed.

Add sifted flour mixture in 3 additions and alternating it with 2 additions of milk.

Mix cocoa powder with water in a small bowl. Add 3 cups of the batter to the cocoa mixture and stir until blended. (I added my pistachio paste here instead of the cocoa mixture)

Spoon 1/3 of plain batter into the prepared bundt pan and smooth it to an even layer. Spoon 1/3 of the chocolate (pistachio) mixture over the plain layer and smooth to even out. Repeat until all batter is used up finishing with the chocolate layer.

Bake for 60-75 mins or until the skewer comes out clean.  Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes.  Invert the cake onto the rack and cool completely.