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Browse all of the recipes in Rukmini Iyer’s cookbooks by ingredient.

Blackberry and Pistachio Cake

Rukmini Iyer's recipe for Blackberry and Pistachio Cake is a quick and easy way to impress your guests. This delightful one-tin bake is rich and sweet with a burst of freshness from the blackberries, perfect for dessert or afternoon tea.

From the book

Introduction

In this dense, rich cake, the pistachio gives an almost baklava-like flavour and works perfectly with the blackberries. David Loftus, the photographer for this book, very kindly said that if he’d been served a little square of this in a Michelin-starred restaurant, he’d have been very happy, so consider impressing your friends with it after dinner. Best eaten the day it is made, on account of the fruit.

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Ingredients

150g unsalted, shelled pistachios
170g softened unsalted butter, plus more for the tin
170g golden caster sugar
3 free-range eggs
30g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
200g blackberries, halved if very large
Icing sugar, to dust

Essential kit

You will need a food processor, spice grinder, or Nutribullet.

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/gas 4, and line and butter a 28 x 22cm roasting or baking tin with non-stick baking or greaseproof paper. Blitz the pistachios in a food processor, spice grinder or Nutribullet until very finely ground (but don’t over-blitz, or they’ll get oily).

Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth, then whisk in the eggs. Stir in the ground pistachios, flour and baking powder and mix briefly until combined.

Tip the cake batter into the prepared tin and dot with the blackberries. Transfer to the oven and bake for 25 minutes, until the cake is risen, firm to the touch, and a skewer inserted into a non-blackberry bit comes out clean. Do not panic if the cake has risen like a glossy quilted blanket to hide all your blackberries – this will particularly happen with small berries – they’re still there and the cake will taste delicious.

Let the cake cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring it, with its paper, to a wire rack to cool down. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Change it up: For a gluten-free version of the cake, leave out the flour and increase the amount of ground pistachios by 20g, to 170g in total. Make sure your baking powder is gluten-free.

Reviews

3 out of 5 stars

2 Ratings

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3 Comments

    default user avatar Lavinia Grainger

    Not sure what went wrong, but it didn’t rise and wasn’t cooked inside cake, I gave it 35 minutes, it was turning dark on top so I didn’t want it to burn and skewer came out clean.
    Such a shame.
    Also not sure about Method stating Beat butter and sugar together, then Whisk in eggs?
    It never went pale and fluffy.

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    default user avatar The Happy Foodie Team

    Hi Lavinia,

    Thanks for your comment. To beat butter and sugar together it is best to use an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer, and to use butter that has softened but not melted. This should allow you to achieve the right consistency. You also might want to try baking the cake at a slightly lower temperature for longer (making sure the oven rack isn’t positioned too high), and making sure to not open the oven during the baking process as this can affect the rise of the cake. It is also worth checking the baking powder you use is in date. Hope this helps!

    The Happy Foodie Team.

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    default user avatar Sarah

    This cake is lovely but it took 50 mins to cook, at 25 mins it was still fully liquid in the middle

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From the book: The Quick Roasting Tin

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