Blackberry and pistachio cake

In this dense, rich cake, the pistachio gives an almost baklava-like flavour and works perfectly with the blackberries. David Loftus, the photographer for this book, very kindly said that if he’d been served a little square of this in a Michelin-starred restaurant, he’d have been very happy, so consider impressing your friends with it after dinner. Best eaten the day it is made, on account of the fruit.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/gas 4,and line and butter a 28 x 22cm roasting or baking tin with non-stick baking or greaseproof paper. Blitz the pistachios in a food processor, spice grinder or Nutribullet until very finely ground (but don’t over-blitz,or they’ll get oily).
• Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth, then whisk in the eggs. Stir in the ground pistachios, flour and baking powder and mix briefly until combined.
• Tip the cake batter into the prepared tin and dot with the blackberries. Transfer to the oven and bake for 25 minutes, until the cake is risen, firm to the touch, and a skewer inserted into a non-blackberry bit comes out clean. Do not panic if the cake has risen like a glossy quilted blanket to hide all your blackberries – this will particularly happen with small berries – they’re still there and the cake will taste delicious.
• Let the cake cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring it, with its paper, to a wire rack to cool down. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Tip: For a gluten-free version of the cake, leave out the flour and increase the amount of ground pistachios by 20g, to 170g in total. Make sure your baking powder is gluten-free.

Instagram: @missminifer

This recipe was first published in the JC November 1 2019