I fancied making these mini pistachio cakes this weekend. No particular reason why you’d bake tiny little cakes, except that I promise it’s very satisfying!
These gluten free miniatures are adapted from a great pistachio cake recipe that features in Rose Carnarini’s cookbook Rose Bakery. Rose’s recipe creates a very rich cake, so I’ve stripped out much of the butter and sugar, and by creating these little versions, they become like petit fours – one or two are just perfect with a cup of coffee.
The cakes are very delicate both in size and flavour. The pistachio and lemon just marries well and you really don’t need more than a couple to feel satisfied. When it comes to cakes I recon small really is beautiful.
Gluten free mini Pistachio Cakes
Ingredients
- 50g | 5 tablespoons butter
- 50g | 1/3 cup sugar
- Zest of one lemon
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 50g | ½ cup ground almonds
- 50g | ½ cup ground pistachio
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
Method
Makes 26 mini (petit four size) cakes
- Preheat the oven to 200C |Gas mark 6 and place around 26 mini baking cases (4cm diameter) onto a baking tray.
- In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until they become creamy and light in colour.
- Mix in the lemon zest and vanilla essence.
- In a separate bowl mix the ground almonds, pistachios and baking powder.
- Add the eggs along with two tablespoons of the dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar, and beat well.
- Finally fold in the rest of the dry ingredients.
- Carefully fill the mini baking cases using roughly a generously heaped teaspoon of mixture per case (or you can squeeze the mixture into the cases with an icing bag if you have one).
- Place in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.
