Blackcurrant Cake with Pistachio and Coconut
This blackcurrant cake is a fantastic upside down cake to try out. It’s full of enticing flavours including sweet pistachio nuts, tropical coconut and creamy vanilla. The juicy fruit is the crowning glory in this easy to make blackcurrant dessert.
Servings: 10
Calories: 395kcal
Equipment
Ingredients
For the blackcurrant layer
- 250 g Blackcurrants fresh or frozen but they must be defrosted and at room temperature.
- 1 tablespoon Lemon juice
- 5 tablespoons Caster sugar
For the sponge cake
- 180 g Butter or baking margarine room temperature
- 180 g Caster sugar
- 3 Eggs large, free-range
- 90 g Soured cream or plain Greek yoghurt
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla extract
- 150 g Plain flour (all-purpose)
- 1½ teaspoons Baking powder
- ½ teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
- 90 g Ground pistachio nuts can be made from whole pistachio nuts (see notes) or use ground almonds
- 3 tablespoons Desiccated coconut
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F/ GM 4 and grease and line a spring-form baking tin with baking parchment (base and sides).
- Grind the pistachio nuts in an electric coffee grinder or food processor (see notes below).
- Cream the butter and sugar together using electric beaters until pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. The mixture may curdle but don't worry about this. When the flour is mixed in the batter will come back together and bake well regardless.
- Mix in the soured cream and vanilla extract.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into the bowl and fold in using a metal spoon. keep mixing just until no streaks of flour remain, then stop.
- Fold the ground pistachio nuts and desiccated coconut in. Take care not to overmix the batter as it will activate the gluten in the flour causing the cake texture to turn rubbery.
- In a separate bowl, toss the blackcurrants in the lemon juice and sugar then spread into the base of the prepared tin in a single layer.
- Spoon the cake batter over the top. Put the tin onto a lipped baking sheet (to catch any juices that run out of the pan) and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool for 15 minutes in the tin then carefully invert onto a cooling rack, unclip the tin and remove. Pull off the baking paper and leave the cake to cool.
Notes
- Measure accurately. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be accurate when measuring cake ingredients. Use grams and a set of digital scales rather than cups. It's a much more accurate method of weighing ingredients and gives much better results than the cup system.
- Use a spring-form tin. It’s the easiest tin to use for this recipe as it makes getting the cake out so much easier once it is baked.
- Lining the tin is mandatory. It is essential to line both the base and the sides with parchment. This step not only prevents the cake from sticking to the tin and makes getting it out easy, but it also reduces the amount of liquid that escapes from the tin during baking.
- Expect some liquid to escape. It is highly likely that some liquid will escape, so pop the baking tin onto a baking sheet with a lip around the edge to catch the dribbles. It’ll be much easier to clean the baking sheet than the base of your oven (says the voice of unfortunate experience).
- Use the right sized tin. Only a deep 8-inch cake tin will do for this recipe. A smaller tin will not hold all of the cake batter and a larger tin will affect the cooking time, result in a flatter cake and the layer of blackcurrants will look sparse.
Nutrition
Calories: 395kcal | Carbohydrates: 43g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 93mg | Sodium: 195mg | Potassium: 294mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 25g | Vitamin A: 658IU | Vitamin C: 46mg | Calcium: 73mg | Iron: 2mg