Strawberry and pistachio cake

This week marks the start of Wimbledon. Strawberries and cream, Pimms and champagne are the first things that spring to mind when you think of this quintessentially English tennis competition. If you’re planning on celebrating the competition with a tea party or barbecue, this cake would make a great addition. The fresh strawberry icing and the green pistachio crumb fit nicely with a tennis theme. As it’s also strawberry season, the cake also makes the most of strawberries which are currently at their ripest and juiciest.

This cake is a recipe from Olive Magazine. If you can find shelled pistachios I would highly recommend buying them as by the time I had shelled 200g of pistachios I had had enough! You will need a 20cm square baking tin and the cake makes 12 generous sized portions. The final presentation wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. My top tip is to use a serving plate that leaves you with a large rim around the outside to allow you to have plenty of space to put the pistachio crumb around the outside.

Ingredients:

For the cake
200g pistachios
275g golden caster sugar
250g butter
3 eggs
275g self-raising flour
75g full-fat Greek yoghurt

For the strawberry icing
200g butter
300g icing sugar
300g small strawberries (carefully hulled)

Method:
1) Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/Gas 4 and line a square cake tin (about 20cm x 20cm) with baking paper.
2) Put 150g of the pistachios into a food processor with half the sugar, then whizz until very finely chopped. Tip into a large mixing bowl, add the remaining sugar and beat in the butter until it is creamy. Beat in the eggs, flour and yoghurt until smooth. Add a splash of milk if the mixture needs it.

Whizz the sugar and pistachios together

Add the butter and cream together

Add the flour, eggs and yoghurt

3) Spoon into the tin, level the top and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and then turn out onto serving platter or board and peel off the paper. Leave to cool.

4) To make the icing, beat the butter until white and fluffy. Beat in the sugar a little at
 a time, then when the mix feels stiff add 
4 strawberries and beat until mashed into 
a pulp. Beat in the remaining sugar. If the
 mix is still stiff beat in another strawberry.
5) Cover the top and sides of the cake with the icing. Whizz the remaining pistachios until finely chopped and press against the edge of the cake. Just before serving thinly slice the remaining strawberries and lay them neatly in rows on the top of the cake, each row running the other way from the one next to it.