For my birthday last year I got the Pocket Bakery by Rose Prince as a present. It has a cute design and I love that it has photographs of the finished products. Some of the recipes are extremely detailed and quite intimidating for me - I often skip the pastry section! So far I've made some Carrot, Oat & Orange Muffins and Masala Chai Fruit Cakes, which is quite pitiful considering I've had the book for over a year. Ryan has been wanting to make Potato & Feta Bread for a few days so we decided to have a baking afternoon together in our tiny kitchen. I opted for these delicious sounding Pistachio & Lime Cakes which turned out really well. Below is my tweaked version of the recipe... I never bake by the book!
Add the butter (in small chunks) and sugar to a big mixing bowl and cream together until it forms a paste-like texture. Then you can add the ready-prepared lime zest and beat in the eggs.
Next add the ground almonds and pistachios and mix before gradually adding the flour; don't forget the baking powder if you use plain flour like I did. You can also use white or wholemeal flour.
It's quite tough to mix at this point but try and combine the ingredients as best you can. Once mixed, you can pour in the milk and stir until you have a smooth cake batter.
Finally, spoon the mixture into the cake cases in your cake tin. I would suggest adding slightly more than you would for fairy cakes. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they are starting to look golden on the top. You can test if cakes are ready by inserting a clean knife into one of the cakes, if it comes out without any mixture on, the cakes are done!
The original recipe also had a caramel topping that could be made using caramel jam and icing sugar. I wasn't even sure what caramel jam is so I opted not to top my cakes with anything. They are super delicious with really strong flavours - nutty and citrus all in one.
For other tried and tested recipes from Away with the Fairies, follow the links below...
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Pistachio & Lime Cakes
Ingredients/Equipment:
- Muffin/Cake tin
- 12 paper cases
- Mixing bowl and spoon
- 125ml milk
- 15ml fresh lime juice
- 60g butter
- 150g soft brown sugar
- Zest of 2 limes
- 2 eggs
- 50g of pistachios
- 50g ground almonds
- 275g self raising flour (for plain flour, add 4tsp of baking powder)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 220°C and prepare the limes and pistachios so that you can put them in the mixture when needed. I bought shelled pistachios so it took a while to shell them all and it was a challenge not to eat them! You can use a food processor to crush the nuts but I used a pestle and mortar.
Pour the milk into a jug and add the lime juice before setting to one side. This will thicken the milk slightly ready to add at the end.
Add the butter (in small chunks) and sugar to a big mixing bowl and cream together until it forms a paste-like texture. Then you can add the ready-prepared lime zest and beat in the eggs.
Next add the ground almonds and pistachios and mix before gradually adding the flour; don't forget the baking powder if you use plain flour like I did. You can also use white or wholemeal flour.
It's quite tough to mix at this point but try and combine the ingredients as best you can. Once mixed, you can pour in the milk and stir until you have a smooth cake batter.
Finally, spoon the mixture into the cake cases in your cake tin. I would suggest adding slightly more than you would for fairy cakes. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they are starting to look golden on the top. You can test if cakes are ready by inserting a clean knife into one of the cakes, if it comes out without any mixture on, the cakes are done!
The original recipe also had a caramel topping that could be made using caramel jam and icing sugar. I wasn't even sure what caramel jam is so I opted not to top my cakes with anything. They are super delicious with really strong flavours - nutty and citrus all in one.
Enjoy!!
For other tried and tested recipes from Away with the Fairies, follow the links below...
- Apple & Honey Cake and Red Thai Pork
- Three Ingrediet Nutella Brownies
- Banana and Nutella Swirl Muffins
- Grandad Davison's Ginger Biscuits
If you fancied making Ryan's Potato and Feta Bread, you can find the recipe here.
xxx
