This recipe is special to me. After years of focusing on savory cooking, this is the very first baking recipe I created from scratch on my own.
After a year or so of baking from other baker’s recipes and teaching myself baking techniques and chemistry, I finally feel confident to start creating and sharing my own recipes.
I particularly love this recipe, because it’s a flavor profile tweak on something we all love, pound cake.
This orange pound cake with vanilla icing and chopped pistachios brings together the moist, rich texture of pound cake with tangy notes of orange and sweet hints of vanilla. In fact, there is fresh orange juice in the cake batter, glaze and icing, in addition to orange zest in the batter.
If you like lemon pound cake, I think you’ll love this orange twist.
The chopped pistachio topping is optional. While I love the distinct nutty flavor of the pistachios that complements the vanilla and orange so well, I do understand that some people don’t like nuts on their cakes. So, leave them off if you and your guests prefer that. It’s your cake, not mine!
While this pound cake can be enjoyed year round, I particularly like making and serving it in winter…as citrus brings brightness, liveliness and variety to the general winter diet.
Orange Pound Cake (with pistachio topping)
Serves 8-10
(Gluten-free; Dairy-free option)
Ingredients:
Cake
3 cups cup-for-cup gluten-free flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
16 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened (use plant-based butter for dairy-free option)
2 cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs, room temperature
¾ cup orange juice, freshly-squeezed preferred
Zest of 1 orange
Glaze
1/3 cup orange juice, freshly-squeezed preferred
¾ cup granulated sugar
Icing
1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
Pinch of salt
2 Tbsp orange juice, freshly-squeezed preferred
¼ cup partially ground pistachios (part fine flour, part finely chopped)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray 9”x5” loaf pan with baking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until well combined and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until the mixture is well combined, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Add the flour mixture and orange juice in several alternating batches to the wet mixture until batter is smooth. Mix in the orange zest until well combined. Pour the cake batter evenly into the loaf pan. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let sit on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.
While the cake is baking, make the glaze and icing.
To make the glaze – heat the orange juice and sugar in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. The mixture should not boil. Set aside.
To make the icing - mix the confectioner’s sugar and salt until combined. Add in the orange juice until it becomes a thick, shiny and smooth glaze. It should not be pourable. If it’s too thick, add a small amount of orange juice. Set aside.
Once cake has cooled on a rack for 10 minutes, flip it over to remove from the pan. While still warm, immediately brush the glaze over the entire cake until all of the glaze is finished. Let the glazed cake cool completely on a cooling rack.
When the cake is completely cooled, pour, drizzle or pipe the icing decoratively over the top of the cake. If desired, immediately sprinkle with the ground pistachios so they stick to the icing before settling.