Pistachio Honey Cake with Mascarpone – Recipe

I've been making the same honey cake for Jewish New Year for several years in a row. It's time for a nutty change.

As much as I like your bog-standard honey cake, it can get a bit, well, boring. I decided to go for a bit of a Middle Eastern twist with pistachios and cardamom, soaking the nut-based sponge with fragrant honey syrup. It was a hit.

Ready? Let's go.


Ingredients for Cake:

6 large eggs
225g caster sugar
2 tbsp condensed milk
75g self raising flour
150g finely ground pistachios
130g unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp pistachio or almond extract
Pinch of salt

Ingredients for Syrup:

1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp light brown sugar
100ml water
2 drops cardamom extract (or 2 cardamom pods, lightly crushed)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Ingredients for Filling:

250g mascarpone
300ml double cream
Chopped / slivered pistachios
Runny honey for drizzling

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line 3x8" round cake pans. To make the cake, whisk the eggs, sugar and condensed milk together in a large bowl until fluffy and pale, and it's doubled in volume. Add the rest of the ingredients and fold together gently until just combined. Divide between the three pans and bake for 25–30 minutes, or until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Let cool down completely.

2. To make the syrup, simply bring the ingredients to the boil for five minutes, let cool for a minute or two, and brush evenly over each cooled cake round. Leave the soaked cakes to cool completely again.

3. Whisk the mascarpone and cream together until fluffy, and layer up the cake rounds with the cream mixture, pistachio slivers and drizzles of honey in between each layer and on top. Then slice and serve.

Enjoy, and have fun.