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You’re going to love this cardamom pistachio cake with no artificial flavors or food coloring!
This decadent cardamom pistachio cake with honey cream cheese frosting is the perfect spring cake for any occasion. It’s sweet, slightly salty, nutty, and so freakin MOIST! Plus, the texture of this cake is so soft and delicate and pretty much melts in your mouth.
This homemade pistachio cake is made with a mixture of freshly ground roasted pistachios, and a combination of cardamom, almond extract, and olive oil which pair so well together. Resulting in a delicately flavored pistachio cake that screams spring!!
But don’t take my word for it, make it for yourself!!
More About This Cake
Before we get into this cardamom pistachio cake recipe, I wanted to list a few things that make this cake so special.
- This pistachio and olive oil cake is refined sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and can easily be made vegan and gluten-free. It’s the perfect allergen-friendly cake.
- Unlike a layer cake, this pistachio sheet cake is so easy to make and decorating is a breeze.
- This cake uses pantry staple ingredients that you most likely already have on hand. So you don’t need to go out and buy a ton of expensive specialty ingredients!
Ingredients For This Cardamom Pistachio Cake + Frosting
Consider this your grocery list for this cake. I’ve also included the brands I used because not all ingredients are equal. Additionally, I’ve included substitutions for certain ingredients if you want to make this cake fully vegan.
Pistachio Cake Ingredients
- Spelt flour: Big fan of One Degree Organics Sprouted Spelt Flour – their flour uses sprouted spelt, which means the nutrients are more bioavailable, and it’s easier on your digestion. Plus, I love the nutty flavor that spelt flour has. Regarding substitutions, all-purpose flour is the only flour I’d swap in for spelt flour. Additionally, if you want to make this cake gluten-free, I highly recommend Bob’s Red Mill GF flour; it’s a 1:1 swap.
- Coconut sugar
- Pistachios: Use roasted unsalted pistachios.
- Cashew milk: You can use any creamy milk here, such as almond milk or regular milk. However, for best results, I recommend using my homemade cashew milk.
- Lemon juice
- Coconut yogurt: Feel free to use any type of thick (emphasize on thick) yogurt. I used Cocojune unsweetened plain yogurt for this recipe during testing; their yogurt has a higher fat content than most coconut yogurts which adds a lot of moisture to the cake.
- Olive oil
- Vanilla paste: Feel free to use vanilla extract. However, vanilla paste has a lot more flavor since it has the entire vanilla bean. I love Nielssen Massey’s vanilla bean paste.
- Almond extract
- Ground cardamom
- Leaveners: You’ll need both baking powder and baking soda.
- Kosher salt
Honey Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients
- Unsalted butter or unsalted vegan butter: I used regular butter for the frosting (Kerrygold unsalted butter to be specific), but feel free to use your favorite vegan butter to make this frosting dairy-free/vegan.
- Cream cheese or vegan cream cheese
- Honey: Maple syrup would be the best substitute for honey if you want to make this vegan. However, since maple syrup has a higher water content than honey, I would use 4 tbsp of maple syrup and add more as needed depending on how sweet you want the frosting.
- Vanilla paste
- Kosher salt
Tips & Tricks For Making This Cardamom Pistachio Cake
- If you want the cake to have a green hue, swap out the spelt flour for all-purpose flour. It won’t be bright green like most pistachio cakes, but it will have a subtle green color.
- If you want to make this easy pistachio cake recipe gluten-free, swap in a 1:1 gluten-free flour. Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour is my personal favorite.
- Do not overbake the cake. There is nothing worse than dry cake. So instead of taking your cake out of the oven when the toothpick comes out clean, take it out when a few moist crumbs are clinging to the toothpick – it’ll look mostly clean. Most baked goods continue to cook on the counter as they sit!
- Frost the top of the cake, not the bottom. I know, it seems like an intuitive thing. But once you peel the parchment off the bottom of the cake, flip it back over on your cake plate/platter. The top of the cake is super moist so if it’s on the bottom, it’ll end up sticking to your platter/plate/parchment paper and will make the cake break off into little crumbs. I made this mistake when testing the cake and it was super annoying!
Storing Leftover Cake
If you do have any leftovers (which I highly doubt you will), I recommend storing them in an airtight glass container in the fridge for up to 4-5 days. Highly recommend leaving the cake unsliced as it’s not only easier to store, but it keeps the cake moist. If you sliced the whole cake, don’t sweat it.
FAQ’s
Answering a few recurring questions. As always, I HIGHLY recommend making the recipe as written using metric measurements for best results.
- How can I adjust this recipe if I have pistachio butter? I’d recommend adding 1/4 cup of the pistachio butter or paste into the frosting, it would taste amazing! Other than that, I wouldn’t add it to the cake as it would alter the crumb/texture.
- If I want to make the cake less sweet, how much sugar should I use while keeping the cake’s texture? I’d use no less than 1 3/4 cup coconut sugar. However, with the frosting you can get away with using as little honey as you like – it’s super forgiving and it won’t alter the frosting texture.
- Is there a good vegan sweetener for the frosting besides swapping in maple syrup? A liquid sweetener would be the best substitute (such as agave, maple syrup, etc.). But you can try swapping in 1-2 cups of powdered coconut sugar or regular powdered sugar, plus 3 tbsp of cashew milk or plant milk of choice. I haven’t tested the frosting with powdered sugar, so you may need to play around with the amount of sugar needed depending on how sweet you like it.
- Would almond flour be a good sub to make it gluten-free? No, unfortunately not. Almond flour doesn’t have the same binding capacity that spelt or all-purpose flour has and would result in a mushy flat cake.
- What flour can I use to make this cake gluten-free? I’d highly recommend using a measure-for-measure gluten-free flour – both Bob’s Red Mill and King Arthur have amazing gluten-free baking flours that would work well here.
- Can I use regular milk instead of cashew milk? Yep, any cream milk would work well
If you have any questions at all, please comment below or DM me on Instagram.
Happy baking!
Print
Cardamom Pistachio Cake
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cool Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 8 people 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Middle Eastern, American
Description
This decadent cardamom pistachio cake with honey cream cheese frosting is the perfect spring cake for any occasion. It’s sweet, slightly salty, nutty, and so freakin MOIST! Plus, the texture of this cake is so soft and delicate and pretty much melts in your mouth.
Ingredients
Cardamom Pistachio Cake
- 1 3/4 cup (405 g) cashew milk
- 1 1/2 tbsp (16 g) lemon juice
- 2 1/4 cup (290 g) spelt flour
- 2 1/4 cup (253 g) coconut sugar
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp (160 g) roasted unsalted pistachios
- 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 3/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup (250 g) coconut yogurt
- 3/4 cup (155 g) extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- 3/4 tsp almond extract
Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
- 3/4 cup (5.5 oz or 156 g) unsalted butter or unsalted vegan butter, softened
- 2 cups (16 oz or 460 g) cream cheese or vegan cream cheese
- 1/3 cup (135 g) honey*
- 2 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease and line a 9×9 square pan** with parchment paper. I like greasing the pan with olive oil. Set aside.
- Prep the buttermilk. In a pitcher, pour in the cashew milk and lemon juice. Stir and set aside to curdle.
- Make the batter. Grind the pistachios in a blender or spice grinder (I prefer the spice grinder as it’ll get the pistachios super fine). Dump the ground pistachios into a large mixing bowl, along with the spelt flour, coconut sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, and kosher salt. Whisk well to combine, and make sure there are zero lumps! In a medium mixing bowl, pour in the buttermilk mixture, coconut yogurt, olive oil, vanilla paste, and almond extract. Whisk well until it’s a homogenous mixture. Dump the flour into the wet ingredients and whisk to combine until there are no streaks of flour.
- Bake the cake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan**, and gently tap on the counter to pop any air bubbles. Bake the cake in the oven for 42-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out mostly clean (there should be a few crumbs clinging to the toothpick).
- Cool the cake. Let the cake cool in the pan for 1 hour, before turning it out onto a cooling rack and letting it cool to room temp, about 1 hour. Personally, I like making the cake the day before, so it has time to chill and sit in the fridge. This helps a ton with flavor development and ensures the cake isn’t too crumbly when you go to frost it.
- Make the frosting. Using an electric mixer (I used an immersion blender with the whisk attachment), cream together the softened butter and cream cheese. Once creamed, about 3 minutes, add in the honey, vanilla bean paste and kosher salt. Cream together again until the frosting is fluffy and light. This should take an additional 5 minutes. Taste and adjust for sweetness as needed.
- Assemble. Once the cake is done cooling, plop on all of the frosting (yep, all of it). Spread the frosting out creating loose swirls and loops. Sheet cakes are supposed to be rough and imperfect, plus they always look good no matter how much you play with the frosting, so don’t fuss with it too much. Sprinkle over some chopped pistachios for garnish and enjoy.
- Store the leftovers in an airtight glass container in the fridge. Full transparency, this cake only lasted 2 days in our house haha, but it should keep well in the fridge for up to 4-5 days.
Notes
*Maple syrup would be the best substitute for honey if you want to make this vegan. However, since maple syrup has a higher water content than honey, I would use 4 tbsp of maple syrup and add more as needed depending on how sweet you want the frosting.
**I’ve baked this cake successfully in an 8×8 square pan, but I’ve updated the recipe since to use a 9×9 square pan as two folks said the batter spilled out. As a general rule of thumb, the batter should fill the pan about halfway so the cake has room to rise while it bakes.
White or whole meal spelt flour pls? Thanks!
I used One Degree Organics spelt flour, which I believe is white spelt flour, but could be wrong.
Can I use my sourdough discard in this recipe? I have 1:1 flour to water ratio
No, unfortunately not! I’d recommend following the recipe as written for best results!
Hi! Could I use regular or brown sugar in the same ratio? I’m not familiar with coconut sugar and whether it’s less or equally sweet than standard sugar. Thanks for the lovely recipe!
I’d recommend using regular cane sugar (not brown sugar) with the measurement. Just a quick note, I wouldn’t rely on the gram measurement as coconut sugar and cane sugar have a different weight per gram. So excited for you to make this!! 🙂
IT CAME OUT PHENOMENAL. Sweet but not overbearingly sweet, light and fluffy but with great chew.
For frosting, I used Trader Joe’s vegan whipping cream mixed with honey. It could definitely use the tanginess and tartness of cream cheese, so I’ll think about mixing some into the frosting (or maybe even a citrus) in the future!
I will be reaching for this recipe over and over again. Thank you!
I made this using gluten free flour – in fact, I subbed a lot of things because this recipe seemed flexible (outside of the foundational non-negotiables) and I had MOST but not all things. I want to say it came out PHENOMENAL even with the substitutions.
I subbed:
– gluten free flour (King Arthur 1:1 All purpose)
– greek yogurt instead of coconut yogurt
– oat milk instead of cashew milk (had to add an extra splash of lemon)
– only had 1 cup of roasted salted pistachios, so left salt out of batter
– added extra vanilla extract instead of almond
SO GOOD. Thank you – will be reaching for this recipe over and over again.
Thank you again for all of your feedback, legit made my day reading through this!!
Yaaaay! So happy to hear you liked it Jess! Thank you so much for leaving such a lovely review, appreciate it! If you ever want to make the frosting from scratch my current favorite vegan cream is the Kite Hill one, it’s super tangy.
This recipe is so good! I removed the cardamom as I’m not a huge fan of that spice, the cake still tasted amazing!
So happy to hear that Arya – thank you so much for leaving a review!!
Hiiii! Wondering if I could substitute coconut suage for maple syrup as a sweetener in the cake batter? Thx!
Unfortunately not, the sugar is not just there for sweetness but it also provides structure and helps the texture/crumb of the cake. The only sub I’d recommend is regular granulated cane sugar.
I used vegan cream cheese and it curdled when mixing with butter. Something I did or an ingredient?
I think the butter may not have been soft enough but would love if someone knows. Pretty new to baking.
No you’re totally right! If the butter looks curdled (like tiny little pieces) it’s because it’s not soft enough. Just leave the frosting out on the counter for 2-3 hours longer and whip it again and it should incorporate nicely!!
Made this with vegan substitutions, unfortunately didn’t have cardamom but soooo good. Phenomenal, lots of compliments, a little expensive with pistachios and olive oil but worth it. I also had too much batter for an 8×8 but baked excess in separate pan and was able to freeze.
One q – is the frosting not supposed to have powdered sugar? My frosting tastes too buttery for me, so I added sugar for a light buttercream.
OMG SO HAPPY EVERYONE LOVED THIS!! Thank you so much for leaving such a lovely review Amy!! Regarding the frosting, I chose to just use honey as the main sweetener since I wanted to keep the cake refined sugar-free, but feel free to use powdered sugar if you prefer. 🫶🏼
I followed the recipe *almost* exactly, just used AP flour instead of spelt. I used an 8*8 pan filled halfway up after reading some of the comments (poured the excess batter into a loaf pan and baked that for snacking bits. It was so delicious and super moist. Next time I may sub regular white sugar for coconut sugar to see if I can get a pale green cake…I think the coconut sugar is too brown to let the color of the pistachio come through.
So happy you liked it Elena!! And you’re totally right, using white sugar along with AP flour will yield a green-ish color to the cake (it’s an excuse to make more cake lol).
What vegan cream cheese and cashew milk brand do you recommend for the icing and the cake?
Highly recommend Kite Hill’s plain almond milk cream cheese, it very closely mimics the flavor and texture of regular cream cheese.
And for cashew milk I made my own – trust me, it’s worth it, the store-bought stuff just doesn’t compare. Linking the recipe here; feel free to leave out the dates, they’re not really necessary: https://munchingwithmariyah.com/homemade-cashew-milk/
Thank you! As for the pistachios, it’s listed to use 1 cup + 2 tbsp. Appx. how much is that in powder form? I already have grinded pistachios in powder form I would like to use.
Not sure how much that’d be in cups unfortunately! However, you could use the metric weight as it should be the same, regardless if the pistachios are whole or ground.
Can I use regular white flour instead of spelt flour?
Yep, AP flour will work just as well! I’d recommend using the imperial measurements since the weight per gram of AP flour is different than spelt flour.
Can I try this in a round cake pan? 🙂
Absolutely! I would use 2 8″ cake pans or 3 6″ cake pans – just make sure the batter comes up just under halfway in the pan so there’s room for the cake to rise.
Thank you!:D
I have a final project in class we have to make a wedding cake 🎂 (3 floors) and i was thinking this flavor of cake is amazing. Do you think it could work just for two layers (1 floor) or is it very delicate for that?
How fun!! Unfortunately, I think the crumb of this cake is too delicate to make it into a three-tiered cake.
Can I use regular buttermilk?
I haven’t tried it, but I imagine it should work just as well.
Would it be ok to make these into cupcakes?
I haven’t tried it, but I imagine it should work! The bake time might be slightly less, so just keep an eye on them. Additionally, I’d fill each cupcake about 2/3 of the way with batter to allow room for them to rise.
This cake looks amazing! I have an almond allergy, is the almond extract necessary? Do you have any substitute ideas? Thank you!
Nope, you can leave it out! The vanilla paste/extract adds enough flavor itself.
This was great! I will use less coconut sugar in the batter next time as it was too sweet for me (but not for the other people).
I had an issue with the frosting. It didn’t get whipped and homogenous for me. I’ve made cream cheese frosting many times before with powder led sugar and didn’t have this problem but I am no longer eating refined sugar so I was excited to try this. The icing was kinda lumpy and ugly but it tasted good. Any tips? I did use the cream cheese with probiotics and no thickeners (not Philadelphia)- that could have had an effect on creamy frothy factor. ?? Will make again but for special occasion. It was costly and took me so much time to do all the little steps. I’m glad I tried it. It was a really great gift for friends and family members. I made cake cups since the icing wasn’t so cute. Also I added rose powder to the icing which gave it a cute color and amazing flavor.
You suggest making the cake a day ahead. Can I leave it in the 9 X9 square pan in the frig overnight before turning it out to frost? Thanks,
annie
Absolutely, that’s exactly what I do! Can’t wait for you to make this!
Made this for my birthday. Such a complex flavor!
Here’s a list of substitutions I made:
– Frosting: Swapped 8 oz of cream with 8 oz of goat cheese for even more tanginess. This frosting is out of this world!!!
– Coconut Sugar: Swapped 1:1 with brown sugar
– Vegan milk: Swapped 1:1 with whole milk
– Oil: Added 1 egg to a measuring cup and filled the rest with olive oil to the 3/4 cup mark
Omg happy belated birthday!! So happy you liked the cake and it turned out well with the subs – using goat cheese for the frosting is GENIUS! And thank you so much for leaving a review, appreciate it.