Or summer on a plate.
This utterly fabulous cake hails from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries. If you haven't got it, then get your hands on a copy immediately - his easy, classic-British-with-a-twist seasonal recipes will make your life a whole lot more gorgeous, even if you just read the words and don't bother with the cooking.
Anyway, back to the cake. It's squidgy, moist and dense in texture, thick with almonds and pistachios and bursting with citrus flavours - the cake is flavoured with orange juice and zest, and the icing with lemon juice. Its robustness makes this the perfect cake for a picnic or a barbecue and I have decided that all the nuts and fruit juice must mean that it is hugely healthy, though I suspect not exactly low in calories.
The recipe has been written down at 'Dressing for Dinner', which looks like an excellent UK foodie blog. She made hers with orange blossom water, while I stuck to the original rosewater, which gives the cake a subtle Middle Eastern flavour. I suspect a drop of almond essence would also work well.
By the way, I ended up cooking it nearly 20 minutes more than the recipe suggested and next time might cook it in a 20 cm tin (instead of 22cm) to make a slightly thicker cake.
The icing was meant to be a delicate pistachio green and I was going to pipe little pink flowers all over the top (Nigel suggests sugar flowers and fresh flowers would also be nice, but our garden is only growing weeds at the moment).
Unfortunately I was somewhat heavy-handed with the food colouring and I'd run out of pink writing icing so the Minx and I devised this alternative scheme which is possibly not the most sophisticated you've ever seen. The Minx though, who 'helped' make it, looked at it thoughtfully and then pronounced it 'a wonderful cake.' She is absolutely right.
My mouth is watering. I love Nigel Slater. Gorgeous colours
Posted by: Di Overton | June 06, 2007 at 10:48 PM
no sense in hiding it's pistachio light under a bushel, big and green and proud to be seen!
Posted by: cally | June 08, 2007 at 04:37 PM
So, what's the actual recipe???
Posted by: Tanya | January 05, 2008 at 12:15 AM
Omg that sounds delicious! Would love the recipe. http://ddlwolf.com
Posted by: Melanie | January 13, 2009 at 04:36 PM
I want the recipe too! http://ddlbee.com
Posted by: Bella | January 26, 2009 at 07:22 PM
я считаю: неподражаемо..
Posted by: гей эротика знакомство | December 17, 2009 at 07:54 PM