August 30

Last weekend my friend and I cooked an Indian feast for 15 people. All I can say is: so much food. My friend was especially worried that we wouldn’t have enough to feed everyone, so on top of the coconut chai ice cream I made (basically just a frozen version of this with coconut milk instead of almond milk), I decided I would make some cardamom ginger brownies. On her way out the door though, she asked if I would make a pistachio cardamom cake with her one day. It’s one of her favourite treats. That sounded a lot more exciting to me than brownies so I quickly looked up a recipe, checked my pantry and got to work.


I have probably never done so little research on a recipe in my life. I saw one by Ruby Tandoh, who was the baking guru in one of the seasons of the Great British Bake Off and decided to trust her. I didn’t adjust the cake itself, but changed the assembly (hers is a layered cake with white chocolate ganache) and decided to use dark chocolate instead of white chocolate (partly because it’s what I had on hand, mostly because I was certain it would be delicious). As I quickly combined the ingredients, I thought it looked pretty good. The batter was smooth, pourable and a nice light shade of green, perfumed slightly with cardamom. After baked, it was golden brown and crackly, with the dark chocolate splatters and ground pistachio on top it looked delectable.



Not only did it look great, but it is probably one of the best cakes I have ever made. It was gone in no time, even after everyone had eaten plate after plate of seven different indian dishes. The cake had a very delicate, crispy outside, a super moist and tender crumb, and was slightly cardamom-y and pistachio-y. The chocolate makes the cake seem a little more decadent but I would say that it’s completely optional. The cake isn’t very sweet and is so easy to eat. It’s the type of cake that you can accidentally eat half of before you even realize it. I am sure I will be making this again before I know it.