White Chocolate and Pistachio Cake!
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Three layers of white chocolate and pistachio sponges, with white chocolate buttercream, and even more pistachio!
Cake
I realised that on my blog I hadn’t put up that many actual cake recipes, more cookies and cupcakes than anything else and I felt this desperately needed sorting out! I love making EVERYTHING however, sometimes when I fancy a big cake, I just want to make a big cake.
I was trying to decide what cake recipe I should experiment with that would be interesting and utterly delicious… there were so many of them I found it difficult to choose! However, I did think I wanted to try something sweet but not overpoweringly so – enter pistachio and white chocolate cake!
White chocolate and pistachio
Seeing as I have an obsession with pistachios and chocolate, I thought that this would be ideal!The sponge of this cake is dotted with bits of pistachios and chunks of white chocolate – combined with the lightest and fluffiest white chocolate buttercream is utterly delicious.
I tend to enjoy this sort of flavour cake or my carrot cake as a treat with a cup of tea! I decided to add pistachios to the sponge of this recipe as I wanted a bit of crunch! Added bonus is that the green of the pistachios with the delicate sponge and white chocolate buttercream looks pretty!
Serve
I decided to make the cake slightly bigger to make it a celebration cake for a friend of mine – it was her birthday and I thought that it would be perfect! The cake would be ideal on a spring and summer evening for the whole family to enjoy, or especially for a dab of afternoon tea.
Other cake recipes!
If you are a person that prefers something sweeter instead, then I thoroughly recommend my lemon and raspberry cake or even my bakewell layer cake which is superrr tasty! I even have a flavour for the chocolatey lovers – Oreo! If you are as much of a white chocolate and pistachio flavour combination fan as I am, check out my recipes for white chocolate and pistachio blondies and my white chocolate and pistachio cheesecake – flavour heaven!!
White chocolate and pistachio cake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 400 g unsalted butter
- 400 g caster sugar
- 7 medium eggs
- 400 g self raising flour
- 150 ml whole milk
- 150 g pistachios roughly chopped
- 150 g white chocolate chunks/chips
Buttercream/Decoration
- 250 g white chocolate
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 350 g icing sugar sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50 g pistachios roughly chopped
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F, and line and grease 3 8"/20cm cake tins
- Cream the unsalted butter and caster sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy
- Mix in the eggs one at a time (if it starts to curdle then add a spoonful of the flour and it'll bring it back)
- Once all the eggs are incorporated into the cake batter, add the self raising flour and whole milk to the mix and then whisk again for 1 minute on a medium speed - it'll make the mix light and fluffy
- Fold in the chopped pistachios and white chocolate with a spatula and split amongst the tins
- Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
- Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then cool on a wire rack until cooled completely
Buttercream/Decoration
- Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmer water
- Set aside to cool whilst you do the rest
- Mix the unsalted butter, icing sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer until light and fluffy like a normal buttercream
- Gradually mix in the melted white chocolate and continue to mix for about 5 minutes until its creamy and delicious
- Spread the icing between the layers and then pipe your buttercream using a 2D Closed Star Piping Tip on the top
- Sprinkle the pistachios on top
- ENJOY!
Notes
- You can easily take a third of the recipe away if you wanted to do only two layers, or make two thicker layers with all of this recipe - it will just take longer in the oven.
- You don't have to use the pistachios and chocolate chunks in the sponges, just use the rest of the recipe as normal, it might just take a tiny bit less time in the oven!
- This cake will last for 3-4 days and will stay just as delicious throughout!
ENJOY!
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J x
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Hi Jane.
I’m planning on making this cake at the weekend but I just have a quick question. In terms of white chocolate, would you suggest I use a high quality one such as Green and Blacks for the icing or will any block of white chocolate suffice?
Thanks 🙂
I usually use cooking chocolate or cheap supermarket own and they both work – green & blacks would be lovely, but it’s not essential!
Thank you for getting back to me. This recipe was a dream to follow and the cake was absolutely delicious – 10/10 all round from the tasters! Thanks so much for sharing! X
I don’t have whole milk can I use semi skimmed?
You can, or you can leave it out x
Hi Jane! Would it work if I iced the sides as well or do you think it’ll be too sweet? I love all your recipes! Thank you!
Hey! Yes that would be lovely! And thanks!
Hi Jane, I am planning on making this next week for my Auntie&Uncles 55th wedding anniversary! I want to make it into 2 layers rather than 3, so will reduce the ingredients by 1/3. With regards to the eggs, do you recommend using an amount of eggs which is as close as possible to the weight of butter/flour/sugar?
Sorry if it seems like a silly question…Im just worried ill end up with a cake either too eggy or a mixture too dry! 😅
Thankyou in advance!
Hey!! Yes basically weigh the eggs in shells and match the sugar/butter/flour to those and get as close to 2/3 as you can haha!! xx
Hi Jane. I made this the other week (2 layers) and I’m going for the 3 layer this weekend. Someone mentioned trimming the ‘crust’ off the cake which I’ve never done before is this something you’d recommend? X
Hey! Do you mean the edges of the cake? I would generally not recommend doing that as it can dry a cake out!
Hi,
rather than 3 layers, would it work doing 2 layers in 9″ tins?
Hi Jane. I would like to just make pistachio cake, would it be possible to omit the white choc chip and replace the same amount with grounded pistachio? Thanks
Hiya! Yes it should, but it might need a couple minutes less cooking so keep an eye on it! x
Hi Jane, I just love your video “Vlog” recipes. It’s nice to watch someone creating in the kitchen and being real about it. 😊 This recipe is right up my alley, and I’m all over Caroline’s idea of adding raspberry curd between the layers… OMGodness…. How much yum factor can this cake have?! One quick question for you, could the white chocolate be melted and added to the batter rather than using solid chips? I’m not a fan of hard chips in my cakes/cupcakes. I’m just wondering if it would mess up the liquid to dry ratio or if it’s a small enough amount that it wouldn’t matter. Alternatively, Hershey’s makes a white chocolate pudding mix that could be added to the mixture instead; but again, I don’t know how that would affect the ratios. As they used to say in school, cooking is an art, baking is a science.
Thanks so much for your awesome videos & recipes!
You can melt the white chocolate in and fold it through the sponge mixture if you want!
Hi,
So I converted this to cupcakes and I’m finding them a little them a little sweet. Any ideas on something to add to make them less sweet?
Is it the actual cake or the frosting? You could not add in the white chocolate to the sponge as that would easily reduce some sweetness because then its more victoria sponge style! For the frosting, you can reduce the icing sugar but that can make it taste more buttery, or use less white chocolate in it!
Hi there, you mention this cake will keep for 3-4 days, where is it best kept? As in does it need to be refrigerated or just in airtight container ok out of the fridge? Thanks
Definitely out of the fridge – as a rule, the only sort of cake that needs to be in the fridge is one that has a cream cheese frosting, any with a buttercream or ganache etc should be kept out otherwise they go hard. x
Thanks again for all your wonderful recipes – they never fail and always taste fab!
Silly question, can I use salted pistachios or do you use unsalted/roasted?
Thank you!
I use baking pistachios, so they’re unsalted and out of shells, but not roasted. But you can use salted if you wish! Probably would taste nice! X
Thank you for a great recipe! I made this for my dad’s 70th birthday; it looked impressive and tasted delicious!
My 4 year old niece has asked a for a pink cake for her birthday. Would it be okay to add some gel colour to the sponge and the icing?
You’d have to use a good quality colouring such as sugar flair which you can buy online, or progel which you can also buy online or in hobby craft for example, and it would work well.
I used sugarflair food coloring and it worked so well. I made four rainbow sponge layers with pink frosting, it’s my best cake so far, delicious ans looked stunning. An absolute hit with everyone!
Hi, I was wondering if this would work as cupcakes? I have your white chocolate cupcake recipe, would it work if I added some pistachios to that recipe? Would the cooking time need adjusting?
The cupcake recipe would work with pistachios, it just might need a minute or two less maybe as nuts are quite drying, but it should be fine!
Cake looks lovely! Could I take the pistachios out of the recipe? My daughters asked for a chocolate cake for her birthday and I want pink frosting so don’t want to do a Normal chocolate buttercream cake. Also, would I have to double the amount of white chocolate in the cake mix to account for the missing nuts? Thank you!
You can definitely take the pistachios out, but you wouldn’t need any extra white chocolate otherwise it might be too sweet! X