This recipe was given to me by Jenni, who is one of the best cooks I know and a Nigella Lawson, Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer all rolled into one! This weekend I called her, frantically looking for a gluten free cake recipe as I was having a dinner and didn’t have time to experiment. Jenni’s number is on speed dial when you need a no-fail recipe because she’s got a recipe that is tried and tested for every occasion.
I made a slight variation and used pistachios instead of almonds – but feel free to stick to the original recipe if you so choose.
Pistachio and Chocolate Cake
Pre heat oven to 180C. Grease a 25cm, shallow cake tin and line the base with baking paper. I use a 25cm spring form pan.
200g dark chocolate
200g butter, diced
6 eggs, separated
200g caster sugar
50g almond meal
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
300g whole unsalted pistachios, finely chopped in the food processor, but not ground to meal, about the size of grains of rice
2 tablespoons kirsch
Break up the chocolate and put it in a bowl with the chopped butter (butter on the bottom) and microwave it at 500 watts for 2 minutes at a time until melted, stir to combine and leave to cool.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and pale, then fold in the almond meal and baking powder. Carefully fold in the chocolate mixture, the pistacios and the kirsch. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and then gently fold them into the mixture. Pour into prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes, until well risen. The surface will sometimes crack, not a problem). If you test it with a skewer the cake should be a little moist in the centre (don’t be tempted to over cook, I find 30 minutes in a non fan forced oven perfect). Allow to cool in the tin and turn out on to a serving dish. Good on its own or with strawberries cut in half and sprinkled with equal quantities of rose water and caster sugar ( a tablespoon of each per punnet) and a dollop of cream!
Had enough leftover batter for ONE cupcake!
Trissalicious 
I do love a good gluten free chocolate cake – that beautiful silky texture and the divine taste of dark chocolate… mmmm… Love a pistachio or two too 🙂
What beautiful photos. As a chocoholic, I love anything with chocolate in it, more so when there are nuts involved, especially pistachio. What I love about this recipe is that there are not many ingredients, so it is definitely doable. Thanks heaps for the recipe.
Looks like a great recipe and I absolutely adore pistachios! Will make this for GF friends (there seem to be more people nowadays that eat GF) 🙂
This is a great recipe! Tried and Tested. Tried by others and tested by me! I guess I need to qualify that… I’ve never made it myself, but I have eaten it many times – mainly because I happen to be Jenni’s favourite daughter in law! (Ok, so she only has one DIL, but that doesn’t matter…)
Who is eating all of these things!?
Usually Dan… hehe… but I now also tend to give them away to friends and family.