Pistachio Yoghurt & Cardamom Cake with Lime Syrup

As some of my regular readers may have noticed,  I have somewhat of an obsession with the cardamom. I find its fragrance and flavour absolutely heavenly, so it's no sursprise that whenever I come across a recipe to use it, I make a note of it with the hope of eventually making it. I have lost count of the number of recipes I've added to my Favorites.. could be time to revisit them and cull!

This recipe comes from 'Sweet Food' by Murdoch Books and requires a food processer. I have a Breville 'Whizz' which struggled a little, and started emitting strange groans in the final stages of use.. I do hope I haven't broken it!

Ingredients
150 g (1 cup) shelled, unsalted pistachios
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

150 g unsalted butter, chopped

1 1/2 c self raising flour

1 1/4 c caster sugar
3 eggs
1/2 c plain yoghurt
1 lime

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Butter and line a 20 cm round cake tin.
2. Place the pistachios and cardamom in a food processer and pulse until chopped.
3, Add the butter, flour and 3/4 c of caster sugar and pulse for 20 seconds or until crumbly.
4. Add combined eggs and yoghurt and pulse for 10 seconds or until just combined.
5. Spoon into the tin and smooth the surface.
6. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool.

7. To make the syrup, peel the zest off the lime with a vegetable peeler and remove any white pith from the zest.
8. Place remaining caster sugar and 100 ml water in a saucepan and stir over low heat until dissolved.
9. Bring to boil, then add lime zest and cook for 5 minutes.

10. Strain and cool slightly. Pierce cake with a few skewer holes and pour the hot syrup slowly over the cooled cake.

Notes
- This is a good morning/afternoon tea cake and would also be nice as a slab cake cut up into squares.
- I removed the cake from the tin before pouring over the syrup. Next time I think I'll cool the cake in the tin and then pour the syrup over and leave it to sit for half an hour or so before serving. I feel this method would make for a much more moist cake.

At this point, I would also like to announce that I have reached my Golden Post! :) I only realised this the other day when I added the number of posts for 2009 and 2010 together.. haha! In fact, this is technically my 51st post. At any rate, thank you for reading, and I hope to bring you many more posts that will leave you drooling on the keyboard ;)

Love,

Ladybird x