Apricot Pistachio Cake #BakingBloggers

Sweet chewy dried apricots and flavorful roasted pistachios combine with lots of creamy yogurt and butter to create one of the richness cakes you can imagine. A hint of cardamom in the batter is echoed again in the orange-cardamom syrup to finish the cake with a Middle Eastern flair.

Apricots and pistachios are two of my favorite ingredients both singly and together. If you feel the same, you will like my Apricot Upside Down butter Bundt and my pomegranate pistachio muffins. My favorite joint venture of the two (before this cake!) is a gorgeous baked Camembert topped with pistachios and dried apricots. It's the easiest, tastiest appetizer you'll ever make.

Besides making me do the happy dance, since apricots and pistachios are popular in Middle Eastern desserts this cake fits our Blogging Bakers theme for this month. Make sure you scroll to the bottom to see the other sweet and savory recipes we are sharing.

Apricot Pistachio Cake

This recipe is adapted from one by the talented Anita Schecter on The Spruce Eats. If you love Middle Eastern recipes of all kinds, you should visit Anita, who I am pleased to call my friend. She also shares wonderful recipes of all sorts (so many great cocktails!) on her personal website.

Ingredients
For the Cake:
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/2 cups or 300g sugar
1 cup or 226g unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup or 245g Greek yogurt
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 oz or 170g roasted, unsalted pistachios
6 oz or 170g dried apricots

For the syrup:
1/2 cup or 50g sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice (or water)
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
Pinch of salt

Optional for serving:
Greek-style plain, unsweetened yogurt

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a 11x15 inch or 28x38cm pan by buttering and flouring it or lining it with baking parchment. If you are lining it, put a couple of dabs of butter on the pan to help the parchment stay in place.

Roughly chop about 1/4 of the pistachios and set aside a couple of spoonsful for sprinkling on the cake when it’s done. Put the rest into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground, occasionally scraping the sides with a rubber spatula. Do not over process. We don’t want pistachio butter.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add in the ground and chopped pistachios and whisk again.

Chop the apricots into small pieces and set aside a couple of spoonsful for decoration. Add the balance of the apricots to the dry ingredients. Use your hands to separate the sticky pieces and make sure they are completely coated in the flour mixture.

Using a hand or stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until they become fluffy and light yellow. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then beat in the yogurt and vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet and beat until well combined. Spoon the thick batter into your prepared pan and spread it evenly to the side and into the corners with a spatula.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile make the syrup by warming the sugar, juice and salt in a small pot over a low flame. Spoon it over the cake while it is still warm.

Sprinkle on the reserved chopped pistachios and apricots.

Leave to cool. If you have lined the pan with baking parchment, you can use the sides to remove the cake from the pan. If not, cut into squares to serve directly from the pan.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt, if desired.

Enjoy!

This month my Baking Bloggers are sharing Middle Eastern recipes. Many thanks to our doyenne and host, Sue of Palatable Pastime. Check out the other recipes below:

• Apricot Pistachio Cake from Food Lust People Love
• Basbousa Cake from Pandemonium Noshery
• Cottage Cheese and Veggies Borek from Sneha's Recipe
• Easy Middle Eastern Puff Pastry Cheese Bourekas by Fatih, Hope, Love & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Laffa Bread from Making Miracles
• Lebanese Sesame Cookies from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Mana'eesh (Palestinian Flatbread) from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Parda Pulao - Iraqi Parda Plau from The Schizo Chef
• Roast Chicken Shwarma from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Umm Ali from Caroline's Cooking

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

Pin this Apricot Pistachio Cake! 

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Shish Tawook – Middle East Meal, Part 1

Shish Tawook translated means skewered chicken. From the Middle East, this dish is made with chicken tenderized by a yogurt-based marinade and pan-fried or grilled until slightly charred.

When we first moved to Kuala Lumpur a long, long time ago, our daughters took piano lessons from a lovely lady we called Aunty Esther at a small but busy studio behind the Ampang Point Mall. So I got to go there at least once a week.  Which became twice a week when younger daughter decided to also continue her violin lessons. 

I would make sure they were safely in class, then mill around for an hour.  One day, right outside the supermarket Giant, I happened to meet the owner of a little food stand called Tarbush. They sold shawarmas – chicken and lamb – and we had a great discussion of the Middle East (I had lived in Abu Dhabi years before and he was from Lebanon.) I told him he needed to start selling some of the other delicious foods from that area, like falafel and hummus and tabouli. He was just starting out but said he was planning to expand one day soon. 

If you live in KL or have traveled there, you know his dream came true!  He started by opening a proper restaurant there in Ampang Point and there are now Tarbush restaurants in several high profile locations.  Our favorite was still Ampang Point though, because it was so close to home and school. Sadly, I don’t remember his name but I like to think we played a small part in his success by our frequent patronage of his fledgling restaurant chain.

Once the restaurant opened, younger daughter always, and I mean always, got the shish tawook.   I made it the other night, thinking about her and mentally wishing her well in these final weeks of her freshman year at RISD.  Even though she is now a vegetarian.  Never mind that, her daddy and I loved it.  It's the thought that counts, right?

Ingredients

1/4 cup or 60ml plain yogurt

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

3 tablespoons or 45ml fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon flakey sea salt

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Method

Put all the ingredients except the chicken into a Ziploc bag and mix well. 

Clean the extra fat and sinews off of the breasts and cut them into bite-sized pieces.   Pop them in the bag with the marinade and massage it until the chicken is well-coated.  Let this marinate for as long as you have or at least one hour.

When you are ready to cook the shish tawook, push the chicken pieces on to some wooden skewers and heat a non-stick skillet till very hot.  

Put the chicken on and cook for several minutes.  Turn the skewers over when they are well-browned.

Cook for a few more minutes until both sides are browned and the chicken is cooked through.   

Tarbush served this with French fries and a divine garlic mayonnaise.  I try not to fry food at home so I made tabouli and hummus (Stand by for Middle East Meal, Parts 2 and 3*) and served these and the chicken with some Lebanese flatbread from the supermarket.  I suggest you do the same.

[Pretend there is a photo of the finished dish here, okay? Somehow I forgot to take one.]

Enjoy!


Looking for part two and part three of the Middle East meal?

Part 2: Tabouli

Part 3: Hummus