For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired up with K&K Test Kitchen. One of my favorite things about the site is the design since the colors are so well coordinated and it is appealing to the eye. I am a web designer by day, so thats one of the first things I noticed.
This was another month where it was hard to choose just what recipe to make. I changed up my tactic this time and asked my fiancé to pick a recipe after I whittled it down to Healthy Spinach Dip, Artichoke Dip, Pistachio Marmalade Cake, or Cashew Chicken. Even though he picked spinach dip, I ended up making the cake. Next time I swear I’ll let him really choose!
I figured this would be a great opportunity to use some of my various jams in the refrigerator, as well as my cute gingham mini bundt cake liners from World Market. I did adapt this recipe to use what I had on hand, and it turned out no worse for it.
I had a lovely Japanese Quince jam gifted to me by my friend Stephanie that was just itching to be used in this. I have a problem when I get things that tast good. I actually don’t eat them. They’re so precious to me I always save them for later, but then they end up getting thrown away! I wasn’t going to let that happen to this jam, so I whipped 2 mini cakes up and sent her one as part of a care package.
You can substitute the cider for any juice (orange juice is the original). I also substituted the cornmeal with almond meal, and replaced the orange marmalade with quince jam. I also mixed the pistachios with some chai sugar I picked up at Mitsuwa on a recent trip to New York to echo the cardamom in the mix.
The texture of the cake was a bit crumbly and the bottom was a little overdone (the middle wouldn’t cook all the way). I don’t think this is due to the substitutions since this same issue was noted on K&K Test Kitchen. In the future, I would recommend bumping the cooking temperature to 325 so that none of it overcooks.
Since the cake itself that was not adjacent to the topping was a bit bland, I would definitely add more jam next time so that the flavor is more pronounced.
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Marmalade & Pistachio Tea Cake Recipe
By Published: October 28, 2013
- Yield: 2 mini cakes or 1 8x8 cake (8-10 Servings)
- Prep: 10 mins
- Cook: 35 mins
- Ready In: 45 mins
This cake, adapted from K&K Test Kitchen is great along a cup of tea at any time of the day, including breakfast. It is further adapted from Big Girls Small Kitchen on the Kitchn. It is a mixture of French, American, and Indian flavors.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup almond meal
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cardamom
- ½ cup apple cider or other juice that complements marmalade
- ½ cup vegetable oil or other neutral oil
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup quince jam or other jam/marmalade/preserves
- 4 tablespoons pistachios unsalted, shelled, chopped
- chai flavored sugar optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment and grease it lightly.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt.
- In a larger mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, marmalade, and sugar until combined and thickened. Gently whisk in the juice.
- Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients, and fold to combine–it’s fine to leave a few lumps. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle chopped pistachios on top. (Note: mix flavored sugar with chopped pistachios prior to sprinkling, if you want)
- Bake for about 35 minutes, until the cake is dark gold and risen, and springs back when you put slight pressure on the top. Test with a toothpick in the center of the loaf; if it comes out dry, it’s done.
- Serve warm if possible, or within a few hours of baking.
- Cuisine: Hapa
These look great! And I love your little bundt “pans”. I always have a stash of jams looking for ways to be used too. I have a cherry-fig jam I made in early September I can totally see in this recipe!
Yum! First, I really like how you jazzed up this recipe! Second, I LOVE your cake liners. So awesome!
Great recipe pick! They look awesome~ Lynn @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
What a beautiful cake! Great pick this month 🙂
Agreed, your cake liners are AMAZING! And any recipe with pistachios has my full attention, but if you add cardamon, I am sold! 😉
wonderful choice for your contribution to the SRC this month!
A cake with pistachios is always welcome, so I’m glad you choose this one, though it didn’t turn out exactly like you thought. But the flavors are amazing! I tend to do the same thing with ingredients I like too much and are rare, I end up not using them and then realize what am I saving them for?
Mmmm… pistachio! Never tried anything quite like that, but it sure looks wonderful! I will definitely have to save this one. Great SRC pick!! 🙂
What cute cake liners!! Thanks for your kind words about our blog and my apologies for taking so long to come by to say hello (though I did check out your post last week too). I really wish that we could solve the baking issue here with the middle failing to cook through, because this cake has a lot of potential otherwise.
Holy crap, thank you so much for posting this! I found a delightful recipe for Green Tea Cake! You should really check it out, it was a piece of cake(lol). So delicious!