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You’re going to love this cardamom pistachio cake with no artificial flavors or food coloring!
This decadent cardamom pistachio cake with honey cream cheese frosting is the perfect spring cake for any occasion.It’s sweet, slightly salty, nutty, and so freakin MOIST! Plus, the texture of this cake is so soft and delicate and pretty much melts in your mouth.
This homemade pistachio cake is made with a mixture of freshly ground roasted pistachios, and a combination of cardamom, almond extract, and olive oil which pair so well together. Resulting in a delicately flavored pistachio cake that screams spring!!
But don’t take my word for it, make it for yourself!!
More About This Cake
Before we get into this cardamom pistachio cake recipe, I wanted to list a few things that make this cake so special.
- This pistachio and olive oil cake is refined sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and can easily be made vegan and gluten-free. It’s the perfect allergen-friendly cake.
- Unlike a layer cake, this pistachio sheet cake is so easy to make and decorating is a breeze.
- This cake uses pantry staple ingredients that you most likely already have on hand. So you don’t need to go out and buy a ton of expensive specialty ingredients!
Ingredients For This Cardamom Pistachio Cake + Frosting
Consider this your grocery list for this cake. I’ve also included the brands I used because not all ingredients are equal. Additionally, I’ve included substitutions for certain ingredients if you want to make this cake fully vegan.
Pistachio Cake Ingredients
- Spelt flour: Big fan of One Degree Organics Sprouted Spelt Flour – their flour uses sprouted spelt, which means the nutrients are more bioavailable, and it’s easier on your digestion. Plus, I love the nutty flavor that spelt flour has. Regarding substitutions, all-purpose flour is the only flour I’d swap in for spelt flour. Additionally, if you want to make this cake gluten-free, I highly recommend Bob’s Red Mill GF flour; it’s a 1:1 swap.
- Coconut sugar
- Pistachios: Use roasted unsalted pistachios.
- Cashew milk: You can use any creamy milk here, such as almond milk or regular milk. However, for best results, I recommend using my homemade cashew milk.
- Lemon juice
- Coconut yogurt: Feel free to use any type of thick (emphasize on thick) yogurt. I used Cocojune unsweetened plain yogurt for this recipe during testing; their yogurt has a higher fat content than most coconut yogurts which adds a lot of moisture to the cake.
- Olive oil
- Vanilla paste: Feel free to use vanilla extract. However, vanilla paste has a lot more flavor since it has the entire vanilla bean. I love Nielssen Massey’s vanilla bean paste.
- Almond extract
- Ground cardamom
- Leaveners: You’ll need both baking powder and baking soda.
- Kosher salt
Honey Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients
- Unsalted butter or unsalted vegan butter: I used regular butter for the frosting (Kerrygold unsalted butter to be specific), but feel free to use your favorite vegan butter to make this frosting dairy-free/vegan.
- Cream cheese or vegan cream cheese
- Honey: Maple syrup would be the best substitute for honey if you want to make this vegan. However, since maple syrup has a higher water content than honey, I would use 4 tbsp of maple syrup and add more as needed depending on how sweet you want the frosting.
- Vanilla paste
- Kosher salt
Tips & Tricks For Making This Cardamom Pistachio Cake
- If you want the cake to have a green hue, swap out the spelt flour for all-purpose flour. It won’t be bright green like most pistachio cakes, but it will have a subtle green color.
- If you want to make this easy pistachio cake recipe gluten-free, swap in a 1:1 gluten-free flour. Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour is my personal favorite.
- Do not overbake the cake. There is nothing worse than dry cake. So instead of taking your cake out of the oven when the toothpick comes out clean, take it out when a few moist crumbs are clinging to the toothpick – it’ll look mostly clean. Most baked goods continue to cook on the counter as they sit!
- Frost the top of the cake, not the bottom. I know, it seems like an intuitive thing. But once you peel the parchment off the bottom of the cake, flip it back over on your cake plate/platter. The top of the cake is super moist so if it’s on the bottom, it’ll end up sticking to your platter/plate/parchment paper and will make the cake break off into little crumbs. I made this mistake when testing the cake and it was super annoying!
Storing Leftover Cake
If you do have any leftovers (which I highly doubt you will), I recommend storing them in an airtight glass container in the fridge for up to 4-5 days. Highly recommend leaving the cake unsliced as it’s not only easier to store, but it keeps the cake moist. If you sliced the whole cake, don’t sweat it.
FAQ’s
Answering a few recurring questions. As always, I HIGHLY recommend making the recipe as written using metric measurements for best results.
- How can I adjust this recipe if I have pistachio butter?I’d recommend adding 1/4 cup of the pistachio butter or paste into the frosting, it would taste amazing! Other than that, I wouldn’t add it to the cake as it would alter the crumb/texture.
- If I want to make the cake less sweet, how much sugar should I use while keeping the cake’s texture?I’d use no less than 1 3/4 cup coconut sugar. However, with the frosting you can get away with using as little honey as you like – it’s super forgiving and it won’t alter the frosting texture.
- Is there a good vegan sweetener for the frosting besides swapping in maple syrup?A liquid sweetener would be the best substitute (such as agave, maple syrup, etc.). But you can try swapping in 1-2 cups of powdered coconut sugar or regular powdered sugar, plus 3 tbsp of cashew milk or plant milk of choice. I haven’t tested the frosting with powdered sugar, so you may need to play around with the amount of sugar needed depending on how sweet you like it.
- Would almond flour be a good sub to make it gluten-free?No, unfortunately not. Almond flour doesn’t have the same binding capacity that spelt or all-purpose flour has and would result in a mushy flat cake.
- What flour can I use to make this cake gluten-free?I’d highly recommend using a measure-for-measure gluten-free flour – both Bob’s Red Mill and King Arthur have amazing gluten-free baking flours that would work well here.
- Can I use regular milk instead of cashew milk?Yep, any cream milk would work well
If you have any questions at all, please comment below or DM me on Instagram.
Happy baking!
Cardamom Pistachio Cake
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star4.8 from 6 reviews
- Author: Yasmeen Ali
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cool Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 8 people 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Middle Eastern, American
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Description
This decadent cardamom pistachio cake with honey cream cheese frosting is the perfect spring cake for any occasion.It’s sweet, slightly salty, nutty, and so freakin MOIST! Plus, the texture of this cake is so soft and delicate and pretty much melts in your mouth.
Ingredients
Scale
Cardamom Pistachio Cake
- 1 3/4 cup (405 g) cashew milk
- 1 1/2 tbsp (16 g) lemon juice
- 2 1/4 cup (290 g) spelt flour
- 2 1/4 cup (253 g) coconut sugar
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp (160 g) roasted unsalted pistachios
- 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 3/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup (250 g) coconut yogurt
- 3/4 cup (155 g) extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- 3/4 tsp almond extract
Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
- 3/4 cup (5.5 oz or 156 g) unsalted butter or unsalted vegan butter, softened
- 2 cups (16 oz or 460 g) cream cheese or vegan cream cheese
- 1/3 cup (135 g) honey*
- 2 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease and line a 9×9 square pan** with parchment paper. I like greasing the pan with olive oil. Set aside.
- Prep the buttermilk. In a pitcher, pour in the cashew milk and lemon juice. Stir and set aside to curdle.
- Make the batter. Grind the pistachios in a blender or spice grinder (I prefer the spice grinder as it’ll get the pistachios super fine). Dump the ground pistachios into a large mixing bowl, along with the spelt flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, and kosher salt. Whisk well to combine, and make sure there are zero lumps! In a medium mixing bowl, pour in the buttermilk mixture, coconut yogurt, olive oil, vanilla paste, and almond extract. Whisk well until it’s a hom*ogenous mixture. Dump the flour into the wet ingredients and whisk to combine until there are no streaks of flour.
- Bake the cake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan**, and gently tap on the counter to pop any air bubbles. Bake the cake in the oven for 42-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out mostly clean (there should be a few crumbs clinging to the toothpick).
- Cool the cake. Let the cake cool in the pan for 1 hour, before turning it out onto a cooling rack and letting it cool to room temp, about 1 hour. Personally, I like making the cake the day before, so it has time to chill and sit in the fridge. This helps a ton with flavor development and ensures the cake isn’t too crumbly when you go to frost it.
- Make the frosting. Using an electric mixer (I used an immersion blender with the whisk attachment), cream together the softened butter and cream cheese. Once creamed, about 3 minutes, add in the honey, vanilla bean paste and kosher salt. Cream together again until the frosting is fluffy and light. This should take an additional 5 minutes. Taste and adjust for sweetness as needed.
- Assemble. Once the cake is done cooling, plop on all of the frosting (yep, all of it). Spread the frosting out creating loose swirls and loops. Sheet cakes are supposed to be rough and imperfect, plus they always look good no matter how much you play with the frosting, so don’t fuss with it too much. Sprinkle over some chopped pistachios for garnish and enjoy.
- Store the leftovers in an airtight glass container in the fridge. Full transparency, this cake only lasted 2 days in our house haha, but it should keep well in the fridge for up to 4-5 days.
Notes
*Maple syrup would be the best substitute for honey if you want to make this vegan. However, since maple syrup has a higher water content than honey, I would use 4 tbsp of maple syrup and add more as needed depending on how sweet you want the frosting.
**I’ve baked this cake successfully in an 8×8 square pan, but I’ve updated the recipe since to use a 9×9 square pan as two folks said the batter spilled out. As a general rule of thumb, the batter should fill the pan about halfway so the cake has room to rise while it bakes.
