This lovely lemon and pistachio cake is such a favourite in my house I am surprised I have not shared it yet. It’s a lovely and light citrusy cake with crunchy chunks of pistachio topped off with a soft mascarpone frosting, so, so good!

To be honest, I am really enjoying the winter months and everything that comes with them, specially the seasonal fruits, however, every once in a while I miss the summer months and all the citrus we tend to use then, and today is one of those days. So I decided to mix some lemons and pistachios and this lovely thing happened!

What is in this cake?

The cake itself it’s made of oil, greek yoghurt, sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, vanilla extract, lemon juice and zest and pistachios.

My pistachios were whole, so I pulsed my pistachios in a food processor twice so they broke up a little bit and I ended up having different sizes, but you could just put them in whole or buy pistachios in pieces (if that’s a thing?). Either way, it’s nice to have pieces of pistachios rather than blending them into a dust.

How about the frosting?

The frosting is made with mascarpone cheese, double cream, icing sugar and lemon. I also topped mine with some extra pistachios. The frosting is completely optional and you could do the cake without it, but I find it adds an extra touch of sweetness to the cake.

Lemon & Pistachio Cake with Mascarpone Frosting

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 115 ml of vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
• 100 gr of granulated sugar
• 120 ml of greek yoghurt
• 2 tsp of vanilla essence
• 3 eggs
• A pinch of salt
• 195 gr of flour
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• The zest of 1 lemon
• The juice of half a lemon
• 100 gr of pistachios

For the frosting:

• 180 gr of mascarpone cheese
• The juice of half a lemon
• 1 tbsp of double cream
• 50 gr of icing sugar

Equipment:

For this I used a 18-20 cm springform baking dish with a removable bottom.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 170 degrees celsius.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the vegetable oil and the granulated sugar. Then, add the greek yoghurt.
3. Add in the eggs one at a time beating them into the mix every time you add one. Then, add the vanilla extract and mix again.
4. Once the eggs and vanilla are incorporated, add in the lemon zest and juice, mix again.
5. Now add in the dry ingredients, the flour, baking powder and the pinch of salt and mix just until incorporated, make sure you don’t over mix!
6. Add in the pistachios. I pulsed mine in a food processor just twice so they broke up a little bit but they still were small pieces in different sizes and not simply a pistachio dust.
7. Butter a springform baking dish and pour your batter into it. Cook in the oven for 40-45 minutes until a inserted skewer comes out clean.
8. Let it cool completely before doing the frosting. If your cake has a bit of a dome, simply cut it with a bread knife so it’s even.
9. Once the cake is cold, in a bowl mix the double cream, the mascarpone, the icing sugar and the lemon juice and beat them together with a hand mixer until nice and smooth. Make sure you try it before putting it on the cake in case you want to add more lemon or sugar.
10. Spread the frosting over the cake and decorate with some more lemon and pistachios. Enjoy!