Dinner party number seven

The seventh dinner party was a somewhat more casual affair, since I had been sick and wasn’t up to a huge cooked dinner. But there had to be cake, since it was also a belated birthday dinner for my mother-in-law.

The menu (which broke the red meat/pork sausage rule. It’s my rule so I can break it):

Corn chips with guacamole and tomato salsa

Pork carnitas and flour tortillas, with:

Smoky, spicy roasted sweetcorn and red pepper salsa

Tangy avocado and pineapple salsa

Radish, red onion and feta salsa

Sour cream

Pistachio and almond cake with crystallized rose petals

I make lots of carnitas and salsas, so I’ve got my standard base recipes which I find delicious but not very exciting to talk about. I also make lots of cake, but rarely pistachio cake. I don’t know why, since it transpires that pistachio cakes are very good.

Pistachio and almond cake

Makes a one-layer cake, enough for 12 – 16 servings

This is a simple butter cake with ground nuts that I made up as I went along, hence the strange quantities and the mix of volume and weight amounts in the ingredients list. I bought the almonds already ground, but ground the pistachios in my food processor and left some nice bigger pieces in there – not huge, but big enough to notice. The texture, flavour bursts and colour that the bigger chunks provide is nice, I think.

I topped the cake with crystallized rose petals (wash and dry some rose petals, lightly whisk an egg white and paint the petals with the egg white, dust them with castor sugar and let them dry for a few hours), chopped pistachios and toasted flaked almonds. That was all just to make it pretty, though; I really don’t think this cake needs any toppings or sides as far as flavour goes. It’s perfect as is, with a cup of strong tea. If you must have an accompaniment, some baked/poached/stewed fruit, such as apricots, would be good, as would thick Greek yoghurt.

½ c butter

¾ c plus 2tbsp sugar

2 large eggs

100g ground almonds

100g ground pistachios

¾ c flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence or extract

¼ - ½ c milk, as needed to achieve correct consistency

Preheat the oven to 160C. Butter a standard cake tin, then dust with flour (lining with buttered, flour-dusted baking paper is also a good idea).

Cream the butter and sugar – don’t worry about getting it very light, I didn’t and the cake was fine. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Add the nuts and stir through, then sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl, add the vanilla and ¼ cup milk, and start to stir slowly. As you stir, add more milk if necessary to achieve a dropping consistency. Stir until just combined.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes, until firm and golden brown, and a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.