Buttery Butter Cake with Pistachios

Remember those moist and buttery cakes from the bakery growing up? This buttery butter cake with pistachios is even better. It’s essentially a pound cake but more buttery. There are plenty of butter cake recipes online and I found two decent ones. Since I couldn’t figure which one to go with, I used the best bits of both. One was from Rasa Malaysia and the other one was from Love Foodies. I also topped the loaf with pistachios and lemon zest. That just took the cake to another level of deliciousness.

I also took the sugar down a notch. It still tasted great, but you could add some more if you want a properly sweetened cake. The buttery flavour of this cake though is something you’d want to back more for. And this little trick I do with most dry cakes keeps it really moist – once the cake is out of the oven, wait for it to cool just a little (say, 10 mins) and then cover loosely with aluminium foil or parchment paper. The steam that doesn’t escape keeps the cake moist.

Ingredients:

Flour – 1 1/2 cups

Butter – 1/2 cup at room temperature

Sugar – 3/4 cup (1 cup for a sweeter cake)

Eggs – 3

Vanilla – 1 1/2 tsp

Baking powder – 1 1/2 tsp

Milk – 1/2 cup slightly warmed

Plain yoghurt – 1/4 cup

Lemon zest – from 1 lemon

Pistachios – handful, crushed

Pinch of salt

Method:

Firstly, ensure all the ingredients are at room temperature and preheat your oven at 180 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar till it’s light, pale, and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, while whisking them so they blend into the eggs and sugar.

In goes the vanilla.

Now it might appear curdled but it’s nothing to worry about. Give it a good whisk for another 20 seconds and the batter will be fine.

Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder together.

Mix the warm milk and yoghurt together.

Add the flour and milk into the eggs and sugar mixtures alternately.

Don’t over mix.

Line your loaf tin with parchment paper and pour the batter in.

Sprinkle the lemon zest on the batter and then add the pistachios.

Bake at 160 degrees for 1 hour and 10 mins (that’s how long it took for mine), checking on it after 50 mins.

Once done, let it cool completely before slicing it up.