Pistachio and elderflower cordial cake

Having made three litres of elderflower cordial which Mr Birdie refuses to drink (apparently it’s too flowery!) I was on the hunt for some cake recipes which use it. I have found a whole host of recipes, a couple of which I have already tried. I decided to start with this Anna Jones recipe as it used pistachios which I was already using in my strawberry and pistachio cake. This cake is gluten free as it uses polenta. I’ve never made a cake using polenta before so this was a first for me!

My only disappointment with this cake was that my icing was no-where near as runny as that in the photo of the website I found the recipe on. You will need a 20cm springform cake to make this cake. My top tip for the strawberry and pistachio cake was to if possible buy shelled pistachios and exactly the same applies here as by the time you’ve shelled 250g of them you will really of had enough!

Ingredients:
For the cake
125 g butter (at room temperature)
125 g Greek yoghurt
250 g unrefined light brown sugar or coconut sugar
250 g pistachio nuts
200 g polenta
1 teaspoon baking powder
grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
3 organic or free-range eggs
150 ml elderflower cordial

For the elderflower icing
100 g thick Greek yohurt or cream cheese
4 tablespoons golden icing sugar or set honey
1 tablespoon elderflower cordial
a handful of pistachio nuts (crushed)

Method:
1) Preheat your oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6. Grease and line the base of a 20cm springform cake tin.
2) Put the butter, yoghurt and sugar into a bowl and cream together until light and fluffy.

3) Blitz the pistachios to dust in a food processor –(don’’t blitz them too much or they will turn to butter.) Add the blitzed pistachios, polenta, baking powder and lemon zest and juice to the butter mixture and mix well. Then crack in the eggs, one by one, and mix in.

4) Pour into the cake tin and bake for 45–-50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin. Make a few holes in the warm cake with a skewer, then gently pour the elderfower cordial slowly over the cake, allowing it time to seep in. Leave the cake in the tin until cool enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

5) For the icing, mix the yoghurt, icing sugar or honey and elderfower cordial until smooth. Spread over the cooled cake and top with the pistachios.