If you want good home-style cooking, you will probably find it at covered dish buffet. Everybody brings their best cookin’. This is where I sampled a Pistachio Cake which was absolutely delicious. It was green — yes, a green cake. The pistachio pudding gives a hint of green color and  a nice nutty flavor to the cake along with a bit of almond extract. So I’m making the dessert with St. Patrick’s Day mind and plan to bring it for an supper event where everybody is asked to bring desserts.

Easy Cook and Elegant, too

The cake is easy to make but looks very elegant and impressive. You wouldn’t guess how simple it is to bake this cake. The key is to use one of those old-fashioned Bundt cake pans. With Bundt cakes, there is no need to spend hours trying to ice the cake layers. Just sprinkle on powdered sugar or pour on a glaze.

I found an old, old recipe in my file box which included chocolate sauce swirled into the cake mix. This variation make an interesting flavor and color combination when the cake is cut.

Recipe

This recipe is made using a box of cake yellow mix and a box of instant Pistachio pudding.

Since I wanted the cake to be really green, I added several drops of green food coloring. And I found that a small amount of almond extract helps intensify the nutty flavor.

Mix up the cake mix using an electric mixer, adding an extra egg (4 eggs total) to the cake mix.

 Take out one cup of the cake batter and mix in 1/2 cup chocolate syrup. Then pour the green cake batter into a very well-oiled Bundt cake pan. Spoon dollops of the chocolate cake batter on top and use a knife to gently swirl. Don’t overdo things with the swirling. Just pass of the knife is enough.

This cake pan has a non-stick finish, but I find that it must still be well-oiled so the cake doesn’t stick. Bake in a 350 degree oven and let it cool entirely before trying to remove from the cake pan. This cake has a slightly thicker crust due to the longer baking time, but that’s okay.

Sprinkle on powdered sugar to decorate. Cut and serve.

And let’s celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a green cake.

My cake quickly disappeared at the covered dish supper. Making an elegant cake really isn’t that hard!

An alternative to this recipe is to omit the almond extract and chocolate syrup. Mix up a lemon glaze and pour on the cake. (Hum, wonder how margarine got into this photo, it’s not in the glaze!) Yum. This variation is good, too and I like the lemon flavor.

Enjoy!  And in these few weeks of “social distancing” due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19, we won’t be going to many more covered dish suppers or St. Patrick’s Day events. We are charting new territory. Instead, think about those folks, especially elderly ones, who are trying to keep out of harms way and the crowds. Bake a cake for one of them!