This Plum and Pistachio Cake is the perfect cake to accompany your morning coffee. A dense and nutty sponge studded with delicious ripe plums. It’s truly my favourite cake.
I’m 100% not fibbing when I say this is my absolute favourite cake of any of the cakes I’ve made. I’ve been making a variation on this Pistachio and Plum cake for years, just using whatever stone fruit I have to hand, and I finally thought it was time to share with you guys.
This cake comes together real fast so you can throw it together at a moments notice providing you keep a good stock of nuts to hand. In fact, I’m whipping up another one this afternoon for my parents who are visiting tomorrow. Fingers crossed I can keep it till then!
Here’s what you’re gonna need:
- Unsalted Butter – Make sure your butter is at room temperature before you start, this makes blending the sugar much easier.
- Caster Sugar – Also known as superfine sugar
- Eggs – Always large, always free range
- Vanilla Extract – Always use a pure vanilla extract, there’s nothing worse than vanilla essence. Yuck!
- Lemon Zest – Finely grated
- Ground Almonds – Found in most supermarkets, if you can’t find ground almonds just blitz whole almonds down to a fine meal.
- Ground Pistachios – If you can’t find ground pistachios just blitz whole nuts down to a fine meal using a food processor.
- Plums – Use nice ripe plums, they will caramelise into the sponge and taste delicious.
- Icing Sugar – Also known as confectioners sugar.
- Lemon Juice – Freshly squeezed from the lemon you zested earlier.
Tips for Making Plum and Pistachio Cake:
- Can I make this cake Gluten Free – Absolutely. Just replace the self raising flour with a gluten free self raising blend.
- Can I used different fruits – Yes! I often make this cake with apricots, nectarines or even peaches. Just make sure they’re nice and ripe.
- Can I freeze this cake? – Yes, make the cake up to step 4, wrap in a double layer of cling film and freeze for up to 3 month. Defrost at room temperature for a few hours.
Plum and Pistachio Cake
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 8 slices 1x
Description
This Plum and Pistachio Cake is the perfect cake to accompany your morning coffee. A dense and nutty sponge studded with delicious ripe plums. It’s truly my favourite cake.
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 200g unsalted butter
- 225g golden caster sugar
- 4 large, free range eggs
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 1tsp freshly grated lemon zest
- 100g ground almonds
- 125g ground pistachios
- 100g self raising flour
- 10 large, ripe plums, halved and stoned
For the glaze:
- 50g icing sugar
- 2tbsp lemon juice
- 25g pistachios, chopped
Instructions
For the Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 175°C and grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin with baking parchment. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Add the vanilla extract and lemon zest and mix to combine.
- Add the ground almonds, pistachios* and self raising flour and mix until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Arrange the plum halves on top of the batter, cut side up.
- Bake for 45 minutes until golden and allow to cool in the tin.
For the glaze:
- Once the cake has fully cooled remove it from the tin and place on a cake plate. Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth. If it’s too thick add a little more lemon juice or a splash of water, if it’s too thin add a little more icing sugar.
- Once you reach your desired consistency drizzle the glaze over the cake and top with chopped pistachios.
Notes
If you can’t find ground pistachios just place shelled pistachio nuts into the bowl of a food processor and grind to a fine meal.
This cake keeps for up to 3 days in a cake tin placed in the fridge but is best eaten on the day it’s made.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: British
Keywords: Plum, Pistachio, Cake, Lemon, Coffee Cake
This is such an elegant cake! I love the flavor combination.
★★★★★
This plum and pistachio cake is such a dream! It came out beautifully!
★★★★★
Absolutley amazing dessert! Soft and full of flavor. We all love it.
Thank you.
★★★★★
This looks wonderful, perfect for the time of year. I shall make it for our forthcoming charity coffee morning.