Pistachio, lemon and coriander seed cake
With a bright and almost citrusy aroma, coriander seed works so well to make this oh-so-easy pistachio lemon cake sing. It gets even better the day after you make it, the subtle flavours becoming more pronounced and the texture squidgier.
SPICE SWITCH: Use the ground seeds of 8 green cardamom pods instead of coriander and add a splash of rosewater to the icing.
In A Whisper of Cardamom: Sweetly Spiced Recipes to Fall in Love With (Murdoch Books, £26), food writer and cook Eleanor Ford explores the creative use of spices in sweet dishes. These recipes from the book highlight the varied combinations that help to unlock distinctive flavour and fragrance.
Next, why not try more great recipes from the House & Garden recipe archive?
Ingredients
Serves 8-10
For the cake
For the icing
Method
Step 1
Grease and line a 20cm-diameter tin. Heat the oven to mark 3/160°C/fan oven 140°C.
Step 2
In a food processor, grind the pistachios with the flour to a slightly sandy powder. Tip out and set to one side.
Step 3
Put the butter and the sugar in the food processor and whizz to a paste. Add all the remaining ingredients and the pistachio flour, with ¾tsp fine sea salt and whizz again. Scrape the batter into the tin and rap on the work surface a few times to level.
Step 4
Bake for up to 1 hour, until the top is golden and springy, and a skewer in the middle comes out clean. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely before icing.
Step 5
For the icing, mix the icing sugar and lemon juice. Pile into the middle of the cake and encourage it towards the edges. The cake keeps well in a tin for a few days, but the icing looks at its sleekest when fresh.
