Pistachio Cake for St Patrick's Day

Pistachio Cake - made March 1, 2015, recipe adapted from Tasty Kitchen

It’s March. Why is it March? Where did February go? I know it only has 28 days this year but c’mon, it should’ve lasted longer than a blink of an eye. But since I blinked and February is now gone, I’m trying to get ahead of March. St Patrick’s Day is coming up and while I’m not a believer in green food (my almost daily salad notwithstanding), or at least green desserts, I did look around for something befitting the occasion. I don’t drink so anything alcohol-based was mostly out, especially after my last and only debacle in purchasing beer.

This cake is a total cheat for St Patrick’s Day but since I’m not Irish and I don’t drink, I figure there’s no way I can be an authentic St Patrick’s Day celebrant anyway. I also abandoned my no-cake-mix principles and sold out simply because this produced a (mint)green-colored cake and that’s what I wanted. The green comes from the pistachio pudding mix in the batter. Everything else is standard cake mix doctored up in an attempt to make it not taste like cake mix.

Texture-wise I thought it was fine, nice and fluffy. I can’t say this was all that flavored with pistachio though so at most, I had a light green vanilla cake with good texture. To bring out more of the pistachio flavor, I recommend sprinkling toasted, chopped pistachios over the glaze. To make it even more befitting St Patrick’s Day, you can also tint some of the glaze with a little green food color. Lay down a white glaze first then drizzle stripes of green glaze on top of it to make the green stand out. 

1 18.25-ounc package yellow cake mix
1 3.4-ounce package instant pistachio pudding mix
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or Bundt pan
2. In a large bowl, mix together cake mix and pudding mix. Make a well in the center and pour in the eggs, water, oil and vanilla extract,
3. Blend ingredients and beat for 2 minutes at medium speed until smooth.
4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly pressed. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Glaze
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
enough whole milk to achieve runny consistency

1. Add milk tablespoon by tablespoon to powdered sugar until desired consistency is achieved. Pour over cooled cake. Let set and serve.