It's my 4 year Bloggiversary and what better way to celebrate it than with CAKE? And this White Chocolate Pistachio Cake with pistachio pudding filling and white chocolate whipped cream frosting is perfect for any celebration!
Cake just feels like the perfect way for me to celebrate my bloggiversary because cake is the reason all of this started.....
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🎂Pistachio Birthday Cake Idea
I actually made this Pistachio cake for my husband's birthday, which falls a few days before my bloggiversary. He loves pistachios, especially pistachio pudding, as do I. So what better than a cake loaded with pistachios and pistachio pudding to celebrate both? Nothing says celebration like a cake that does double duty! And this is the perfect adult birthday cake idea!
Like I said, it all started with cake; a Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix to be precise. I have LOVED baking as far back as I can remember (you can read more about my love of baking HERE) but I especially loved baking cakes. As a kid, I used to make Black Forest Cakes because it was my Mom's fave cake and I thought I could entice her to bake with me that way. And sometimes it even worked, although she wasn't really into baking.
Fortunately both my Grandma and Baba were big bakers, as were my aunts. When I was a kid my Auntie Sue used to bake me these amazing decorated cakes for my birthday- everything from barbie dolls to telephone cakes. And I remember thinking not only how cool that was, but how I was going to do that when I grew up! So cake decorating was a natural transgression.
I decorated cakes for many years, but eventually started to move to the inside of the cake, getting creative and eventually developing my own cake recipes. This Butter Tart Bundt Cake is one of my faves! Then I began to enter my recipes in cooking competitions and winning. I wanted to share those recipes with the rest of the world so I started this blog back in 2016.
After 4 years of blogging, this White Chocolate cake with pistachio will mark recipe #287 on this blog and it's one that I'm really excited to share with you. White Chocolate Cake is also the perfect pairing with pistachio pudding. In fact, I have used this combo before in my Pistachio Dessert so I already knew it was a winner. So if you love pistachios, you'll love this cake too!
🥘 Ingredients
For this recipe, you'll need:
- white chocolate (baking bar) * do NOT use white chocolate chips
- milk - I use 1% but you could use 2%
- all-purpose flour
- baking powder
- salt
- unsalted butter - you can use salted butter as a subtitute; simply leave out the salt in the recipe
- white granulated sugar
- vanilla
- eggs
- pistachios- ground and chopped
- stabilized whipped cream frosting
- pistachio instant pudding mix/powder
📖Variations- Pistachio Cake Frosting
White Chocolate Whipped Cream frosting is the perfect icing to pair with this cake! It's subtle, not overly sweet and light!
- I simply add melted white chocolate to my Basic Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting and add a little to the pistachio pudding filling.
OR
- My 2 Ingredient White Chocolate Frosting (Ganache) would also go really well with this cake.
💭 Top tips
- If you don't want to use piping gel (affiliate link) to stabilize your whipped cream frosting. Here are instructions on How to Stabilize Whipped Cream with gelatin.
- You will have leftover cake "bits" when you trim the tops off the cakes before stacking - I keep them in the freezer in a Ziplock freezer bag and make small mini trifles out of them (eventually)
🍽 Equipment
You need a stand mixer or a hand mixer for this recipe.
🌡️Storing
This cake can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days (just be sure to check the expiry date on your whipped cream!)
I obviously love cake, so will use any excuse to celebrate with it. And you have to admit that every celebration deserves cake. This cake is ideal for so many celebrations, including birthdays, Mother's Day and even Bloggiversaries! So no matter what the occasion, if you've got a pistachio lover in your realm, you'll want to make them this cake! It's really the best pistachio cake I've ever had, if I do say so myself 🙂
Check out my Chocolate Genoise cake post too - it's all about celebrating every little milestone with cake!
📋 White Chocolate Pistachio Cake Recipe
Equipment
- stand or hand mixer
Ingredients
- 8 oz white chocolate (baking bar), chopped * do NOT use white chocolate chips
- 2 ¼ cups milk * I use 1%
- 3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 3 ¾ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp- unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup + 2 tsp - granulated white sugar
- 5 medium -eggs room temperature
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla
- 1 ½ cups ground pistachios
Filling
- 1 cup of the prepared white chocolate stabilized whipped cream frosting
- 2 - 99 g -pkg of instant pistachio pudding mix
White Chocolate Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting
- 4 cups whipping cream
- 4 ounces white chocolate (baking bar) * do not use white chocolate chips
- 6 tbsp piping gel * or use gelatin (see NOTES)
- 4 tbsp powdered sugar
Garnish
- 7 Lindt round white chocolate truffles
- ¼ cup chopped pistachios * approximately
- ½ cup ground pistachios * approximately
Instructions
White Chocolate Pistachio Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/175 degrees C. Grease and flour three 8 inch round cake pans with non stick cooking spray or Cake release (I use Wilton Cake Release)
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt until well combined. Set aside.
- Heat milk in microwave for 1 ½ - 2 minutes until warm. In a separate bowl, heat white chocolate at 50% power for 2 minutes until melted. Whisk together in one bowl, then return to microwave for 1 more minute at 50% power.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or an electric hand beater), cream butter and sugar on medium -high until fluffy (about 3 minutes) then reduce speed and add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add vanilla.
- Alternate adding flour mixture and milk/white chocolate mixture, beginning and ending with flour, making sure it's fully incorporated after each addition. Fold in 1.5 cups of ground pistachios.
- Pour into 3 greased pans and bake for 35- 40 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool cake in pan for 5 minutes, then loosen edges and turn onto wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Cool completely.
- When cool, trim humps off cake.
Filling
- Prepare instant pudding as per package directions, reducing milk by ¼ cup for each package. **2 (99g) packages will require 1 ½ cups milk instead of the 2 the directions call for.
- Add 1 cup of prepared chocolate whipped cream frosting to pistachio pudding and mix together.
Assembly
- Place 1st cake on a surface so smooth side is facing up.
- Pipe a border around the rim of the top of the layer of cake.
- Add about ⅓ the pistachio pudding/whipped cream mixture to the first layer and spread evenly
- Then add another cake layer and another ⅓ of the pudding (approx)* You will have some pudding left over, but there was no way around this!)
Frosting
- Smooth around cake, scraping off any filling that seeped out. Then frost cake with white chocolate whipped cream frosting,
- Adding a border (with a pastry bag and 1 M tip) around the bottom of the cake. Then add 6 dollops on top.
Garnish
- Add a Lindt white chocolate truffle to each dollop.
- Sprinkle chopped pistachios on top of cake.
- "Toss" crushed pistachios at sides of cake (this is how I do it - I literally 'toss' the pistachios at the sides of the cake)
- Keep refrigerated until ready to serve!
Notes
- If you don't want to use piping gel (affiliate link) to stabilize your whipped cream frosting, here are instructions on How to Stabilize Whipped Cream with gelatin
- You will have leftover cake "bits" when you trim the tops off the cakes before stacking - I keep them in the freezer in a Ziplock freezer bag and make mini trifles out of them (eventually).
Anne Lawton
This cake looks absolutely delicious! I love the whipped cream frosting.
Terri Gilson
Thank you, Anne!
Jersey Girl Cooks
This is a pretty and delicious cake. I love pistachio flavored everything!
Terri Gilson
Thanks!
Amy
Hi when do you add the ground pistachios to the cake mixture? Thanks
Terri Gilson
Yes! Sorry about that- I updated it!