Pistachio Loaf Cake

This is a really rich, dense cake with lots of pistachio. Next time, might try cutting down the sugar from 1.5 cups to 1 cup of sugar. I used a 8 x 4 loaf pan, so I poured a little batter into another load pan to try the cake! 

Pistachio Loaf Cake (~from Molly Yeh’s cookbook, Molly on the Range)

Ingredients

1.5 cups unsalted roasted pistachios (used roasted, lightly salted pistachios because couldn’t find unsalted)

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup coarse-ground almond flour (used Trader Joe’s almond meal)

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1.5 cups sugar

4 large eggs

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease a 9 x 4 inch loaf pan and line bottom with parchment paper (I forgot to line the bottom with parchment paper and it was ok.)

Food processor –> Grind pistachios to a fine crumb (mine was not extremely fine because I was worried if I ground it to much it, it would become a nut butter). Move 1.5 cups to a large bowl (the remainder will be topping).

Mix salt, flour, ground almonds, and ground 1.5 cups ground pistachios together.

Stand mixer + paddle attachment –> cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs (one at a time), lemon zest, and extract.

Add dry ingredients slowly.

Pour mixture into prepared loaf pan.

Bake 45 minutes. Toothpick should come out clean. (My cake required 5-10 min longer to bake. It was still quite underdone at 40 min)

Cool in pan 10 minutes, then complete cooling on a rack.

Mix lemon juice and powdered sugar, then glaze cake. Top with remaining pistachio bits.