Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake

I always thrive to try different combinations when it comes to baking plain cakes. In my family, we love Pound Cakes a lot. I don’t bake pound cakes often though, but when I do, I try to make a good one. I wanted to make a cake with the no-fail combination of Pistachio+Saffron+Rose from quite a long time. I was having a prenotion that the flavour combo will perform well. During baking the heavenly aroma wafting out from the oven made me realise that I was right, my instinct and experience with baking always helps me to play with the ingredients. And it gives me immense happiness when I see that a recipe which I developed in my kitchen is showing me a satisfactory result. I love my Nordicware Bundt Pan, and this pan needs more cake batter to fill with, so, I made a big cake. But this recipe can be halved easily. The cream cheese added a beautiful texture to this Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake, and the cake tasted more like Saffron Pistachio Sondesh (Saffron Cottage Cheese Fudge) to me. Those orange saffron strands added beauty to the cake slices and will make you want more of this.

The festive season is almost here. And this cake would compliment all the coming festivities, bake it ASAP and thank me later. 🙂

Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
5 from 3 votes
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Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake

Best ever Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake. Baked with saffron and rose water, along with the added flavour from cardamoms made this cake a unique one.

Cuisine Indian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings 10
Author Chandrima

Ingredients

  • 3 cups- All-purpose flour/Maida
  • cups- Caster sugar (powdered sugar)
  • ½ tsp- Salt
  • ½ cup- Pistachio (chopped)
  • ¾ cup- Milk
  • 1 tsp- Saffron
  • ¼ cup- Rose water
  • 10 Green cardamoms
  • 1 cup- Unsalted butter
  • 4 Eggs
  • 1 pack/8 ounces- Cream cheese
  • 2 tsp- Baking powder

Instructions

  1. Before I start all the ingredients were at room temperature.

  2. Soak saffron in milk for 3-4 hours, keep it covered.

  3. Make a coarse powder of cardamom seeds using your mortar-pestle, discard the green pods.

  4. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Grease a 2.4 litre Bundt cake pan (I used my Nordic ware Heritage Bundt pan here) using a pastry brush with melted butter. Or, use a lecithin free baking spray. Make it sure to coat all the nooks in the pan, this ensures an easy release for the cake with the sharp design intact. If you’re not using a Bundt pan, then use a 10” cake pan by greasing with butter and place a piece of baking paper at the bottom of the pan.

  5. In a bowl, sift all-purpose flour and baking powder. Add salt and cardamom powder, mix well and keep aside.

  6. In another bowl, add cream cheese and butter, now start whisking until smooth at low speed using your electronic hand mixer or stand mixer whatever you have, don’t overbeat. 

  7. Add sugar in two batches, whisk on until mixed well. In this add the eggs one by one. Add one at a time and keep whisking. 

  8. Now add flour mixture in 3 batches, whisk well. 

  9.  Add saffron milk and rose water next, keep whisking until smooth batter forms, care should be taken on not to overbeat the batter.

  10. Add on chopped pistachio, mix gently with a spatula.

  11. Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake pan (read note). Tap cake pan gently on the kitchen counter couple of times to release the air bubbles. Bake for 60 minutes. 

  12. Insert a sharp knife in the middle of the cake. The cake is ready if the knife comes out clean. If not, bake for some more time, and then check again. 

  13. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes and then invert the cake gently onto a cooling rack. Let the Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake cooled completely before slicing.

Recipe Notes

  • The batter was more for my 2.5 litre bundt pan. So, I baked a Bundt cake and 6 cupcakes out of it.
  • Baking time may vary a little bit for different ovens and different sizes of baking pans.
  • Halve the ingredients if you want to bake a smaller cake. The baking time will reduce in this case.
  • During the baking time when the cake browns perfectly on top (after 30 minutes or so), cover the top loosely with a piece of Aluminium foil until it is fully baked. It helps to prevent the cake from over browning.
  • Store the cake slices in an airtight container and keep refrigerated, consume within a week.
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake
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16 Comments

  1. The Saffron Pistachio Pound Cake looks really tempting😋 But as I am a vegetarian can I make this cake without eggs..?

     
  2. Hai Chandrima what a lovely cake,just wanted to know which rose water you had used, because some of them tend to be really strong.

     
    • Hi Susan,

      Thank you. I used organic rosewater from a local store. You can use any edible rose water according to your preference for this cake, Happy Baking! 🙂

       
  3. Hi Chandrima ,, looks really delicious,, one question .. shall we use castor sugar or icing sugar?

     
  4. Hi.. would love to bake this cake! Should I bake it at 170°/ 180° ?
    Also, for how long should I preheat it at 170°?

     
  5. 5 stars
    Thanks for the recipe! Going to be trying out a half quantity in my small bundt pan. I have to say, it was hard converting all ingredients to grams first.

    I had another question- if you don’t add vanilla extract after adding eggs does it smell eggy or does the rose water mask the egg smell well? Thank you Chandrima!

     
    • Hi Jenny,

      Thank you for writing. I’d not recommend using Vanilla extract here. The flavour profile of this cake is quite strong (saffron+rose water+cardamom), so you wouldn’t get any smell from the eggs. For a smaller cake, the baking time will be less, maybe 30 minutes. Happy Baking! 🙂

       

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