Birthdays and anniversaries require cake so we're having cake today for this little Blog's 4th Anniversary!
When I realized this anniversary was coming up, I started thinking about cake. Surprisingly, I didn't have a queue of cakes I wanted to make sitting on the sidelines so I kept it simple and just asked myself: what kind of cake do I want to eat? And pistachio cake popped into my mind. I've been on a pistachio kick lately and, to me, they're kind of like pears in that I'll go for a while without eating them and forget how good they are until I eat them again.
So pistachios it was! In the back of my mind, I was seeing this chocolate pistachio cake of Martha's that I always found alluring. I stuck with the torte idea (which I tend to think of as nut-based, European-style, cakes) but instead of making a chocolate-pistachio cake, I made it a pistachio cake with chocolate. I wanted the bright, nutty flavor of the pistachios to shine. I based the cake on a recipe from epicurious and added the chocolate elements. Pistachios and orange with chocolate is one of my favorite combinations so that's what we have.
I didn't give this cake a lot of pre-thought before making it and wow, I was very pleasantly surprised by the cake I ended up with! It was totally scrumptious, really moist and full of nutty citrus flavor, capped off by that coating of chocolate ganache. I will be making this one again and again.
The cake is made with ground pistachios but since it's not propped up solely on ground nuts (there's flour in it, too), the texture is moist and dense but also stands firmly in traditional cake territory as well. I find cakes made entirely with ground nuts can be too rich and moist for my taste so this was a great balance. There's a lovely chewiness to it also that I adore. Orange zest works so well with pistachios and while I already have chocolate well represented in the coating, I couldn't resist adding another hint of chocolate in the cake itself. So I grated an ounce of dark chocolate and folded it into the batter at the last moment. You might not be able to detect the shaved chocolate within the cake but I'm comforted to know it's there.
I attempted to make this a little more special by creating a two-tier cake, a 4-inch on top of an 8-inch base. As you can see, I swaddled the cake in chocolate ganache, which is like an irrepressible reflex for me. I am exploring my new interest in water ganache so it was made with just dark chocolate and water. I'd use a little less water next time for a thicker consistency but I'm so far very happy with the water ganache option. I topped the cake with a little decoration of chopped pistachios and cocoa nibs. I would say this cake is a good representation of the kind of cake I love to eat - a moist, flavorful cake featuring nuts and chocolate!
I'm so glad I made cake to celebrating four years tapping away on this blog! When I first started here, I didn't know how long I'd keep at it, and I still don't. I'm almost surprised I'm still plugging away here but the truth is this continues to be a fun outlet for me and a motivation for learning. I love thinking, talking, reading, writing, cooking, and eating food and that hasn't changed.
I've learned to be comfortable in this space and I enjoy the freedom to make and show what I want without being pinned down to anything. For a non-creative person like me, I really love the act of creating these pages - seeing these posts come to be with a recipe, some time in the kitchen, and then some words and a few pictures. There is a great sense of satisfaction in it that I'm very grateful for.
If there's one thing that I feel a little sad about in the last four years of joining the food-blogging world (in my own very amateur, minor way) is the exiting of blogs that I got to know and enjoy. While many blogs I started visiting four years ago are still going strong, some have stopped blogging altogether or reduced their posting significantly. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed their words, recipes, inspiration until they were gone and I miss many of them. I trust that those who have stopped blogging are happy and busy, and I'm sure they continue to eat well. So I'm having a piece of cake and celebrating food blogs of old, the ones that continue to go strong, and ones yet to come that do so much to inspire and entertain me. Thank you! : )
So pistachios it was! In the back of my mind, I was seeing this chocolate pistachio cake of Martha's that I always found alluring. I stuck with the torte idea (which I tend to think of as nut-based, European-style, cakes) but instead of making a chocolate-pistachio cake, I made it a pistachio cake with chocolate. I wanted the bright, nutty flavor of the pistachios to shine. I based the cake on a recipe from epicurious and added the chocolate elements. Pistachios and orange with chocolate is one of my favorite combinations so that's what we have.
The cake is made with ground pistachios but since it's not propped up solely on ground nuts (there's flour in it, too), the texture is moist and dense but also stands firmly in traditional cake territory as well. I find cakes made entirely with ground nuts can be too rich and moist for my taste so this was a great balance. There's a lovely chewiness to it also that I adore. Orange zest works so well with pistachios and while I already have chocolate well represented in the coating, I couldn't resist adding another hint of chocolate in the cake itself. So I grated an ounce of dark chocolate and folded it into the batter at the last moment. You might not be able to detect the shaved chocolate within the cake but I'm comforted to know it's there.
If there's one thing that I feel a little sad about in the last four years of joining the food-blogging world (in my own very amateur, minor way) is the exiting of blogs that I got to know and enjoy. While many blogs I started visiting four years ago are still going strong, some have stopped blogging altogether or reduced their posting significantly. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed their words, recipes, inspiration until they were gone and I miss many of them. I trust that those who have stopped blogging are happy and busy, and I'm sure they continue to eat well. So I'm having a piece of cake and celebrating food blogs of old, the ones that continue to go strong, and ones yet to come that do so much to inspire and entertain me. Thank you! : )
