Introducing your new favorite unique coffee cake: Cardamom Pistachio Coffee Cake. This cozy spiced coffee cake is topped with a buttery pistachio streusel and laced with a thick ribbon of cardamom cinnamon sugar. YUM.
Introducing your new favorite unique coffee cake: Cardamom Pistachio Coffee Cake. This cozy spiced coffee cake is topped with a buttery pistachio streusel and laced with a thick ribbon of cardamom cinnamon sugar. YUM.
Switch up your classic coffee cake with this unique cardamom pistachio coffee cake
There’s nothing better than starting the day off on a sweet note on my opinion. Dessert for breakfast? Sign me up. Which is why I loooooove coffee cake. It’s a hearty, sweet way to start the day without being overpoweringly sugary. And this cardamom pistachio bundt cake might just be my favorite one. It’s spiced with a healthy dose of warming cardamom spice and topped with a delightfully crunchy pistachio streusel.
And god damn. It’s good.
My love affair with cardamom
You might know that I have In 2009, I spent a summer in northern India. It was the best summer of my life. I hiked the Himalayas, home-stayed with a family of Ladakhi farmers, explored tiny mountain towns, and met His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It was an unforgettable experience.Every day began with the faint sound of bells and the smell of mountain air. I’d wake up well-rested and calm. After lounging for a few minutes, I’d head downstairs for tea.
The tea was incredible. In India, tea translates to ‘chai,’ so every morning we drank as many cups of chai as we could. For me, it was usually 3-4 steaming hot cups. The tea was made from boiled water, yak milk, black tea leaves, an array of spices, and sugar. It tasted vaguely similar to the chai tea that most of you know, but less spicy and more well-rounded.
It smelled of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and most fragrantly, cardamom. To this day cardamom is one of my favorite smells, if not my ultimate favorite.As I made this coffee cake, I kept inhaling the cardamom pods I bought. It took me right back to those mornings, sitting on a stone patio under the Indian sun, drinking copious amounts of chai.
Ingredients for cardamom pistachio coffee cake
Now onto this cake. It happens to be the softest coffee cake in the whole world. The texture is otherworldly; it absolutely melts in your mouth. And the crunchy pistachio streusel on top? Let’s just say I couldn’t stop picking at the crumbs on the bottom of the plate. Sold?
So, here’s your grocery list. I know it’s a little long and has a few ingredients that aren’t pantry staples, but it’s completely worth it for this scrumptious unique coffee cake
butter
granulated sugar
brown sugar
eggs
vanilla extract
all purpose flour
baking powder
baking soda
cardamom
salt
yogurt
pistachios
This cake would be fantastic for a weekend brunch because it’s so unique. And it makes the entire house smell amazing, the cardamom wafting through the air for hours after the cake is baked. Eeeee! I just love it.
Introducing your new favorite unique coffee cake: Cardamom Pistachio Coffee Cake. This cozy spiced coffee cake is topped with a buttery pistachio streusel and laced with a thick ribbon of cardamom cinnamon sugar. YUM.
Introducing your new favorite unique coffee cake: Cardamom Pistachio Coffee Cake. This cozy spiced coffee cake is topped with a buttery pistachio streusel and laced with a thick ribbon of cardamom cinnamon sugar. YUM.
1/4 cup unsaltedbutter, cold and cut into small cubes
1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a tube pan with parchment paper on the bottom, then grease the sides with butter. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cardamom, and salt, whisking to combine. Slowly alternate folding in the flour mixture and the low fat yogurt into the wet ingredients until everything is combined.
To make the streusel, place the pistachios, cardamom, flour, and sugar in a food processor and pulse until the pistachios look well chopped. Pulse in the butter until just combined.
Pour half of the batter into the tube pan, then sprinkle with brown sugar, if using. Pour in the rest of the batter, then top with the pistachio streusel. You’ll want to squeeze the streusel into your hands, making it dense like wet sand, then sprinkle it over the batter. Bake for 50 minutes, then allow to cool slightly before removing from pan.
As a Scandinavian and a lover of all things cardamom and all things pistachio, I can’t wait to try this recipe! I do have a couple of questions though. Will a 2 piece tube pan work okay? And, have you ever tried baking it in a bundt pan and maybe even putting the streusel in first and then the half cake batter/brown sugar/rest of cake batter?
Hi Susan! We actually used a 2 piece tube pan–so yes! Most definitely 🙂 I have never tried doing it in a bundt, but I think as long as you buttered it up really well that would be very beautiful!
Since there are only 2 of us, I split this recipe in half and put it in a loaf pan instead of a tube pan. At first I thought I didn’t have enough batter, but it rose and fit perfectly!
I didn’t have plain yogurt, so I used my favorite vanilla bean Australian style Greek yogurt. I added a little cardamom to the brown sugar swirl too. It is delicious and made the whole kitchen smell wonderful. The cake is moist and fragrant. I cannot wait to have this tomorrow morning with some Turkish coffee. Thanks so much for another amazing recipe!
This looks incredible, do you think it would work in a normal round cake tin? Or as a traybake? I don’t have a tube tin and don’t have the kitchen space to invest 🙁
It would probably work in a traybake, but it is a lot of batter so you may have to split it in half! If you have an extra large rectangular traybake that would work!
Leave a comment and rate this recipe!
As a Scandinavian and a lover of all things cardamom and all things pistachio, I can’t wait to try this recipe! I do have a couple of questions though. Will a 2 piece tube pan work okay? And, have you ever tried baking it in a bundt pan and maybe even putting the streusel in first and then the half cake batter/brown sugar/rest of cake batter?
Hi Susan! We actually used a 2 piece tube pan–so yes! Most definitely 🙂 I have never tried doing it in a bundt, but I think as long as you buttered it up really well that would be very beautiful!
yummy. I love cardamom too and for that matter pistachios too, a nice contrast to the traditional coffee cake flavors, thank you!
★★★★★
Lauren, I want to make this tomorrow, but alas, I need a replacement for the yogurt. we don’t consume yogurt, so it’s not in this home. Please?
Hi Christine! You could swap out the yogurt with sour cream or buttermilk!
Thank you so much, Sofi!
Since there are only 2 of us, I split this recipe in half and put it in a loaf pan instead of a tube pan. At first I thought I didn’t have enough batter, but it rose and fit perfectly!
I didn’t have plain yogurt, so I used my favorite vanilla bean Australian style Greek yogurt. I added a little cardamom to the brown sugar swirl too. It is delicious and made the whole kitchen smell wonderful. The cake is moist and fragrant. I cannot wait to have this tomorrow morning with some Turkish coffee. Thanks so much for another amazing recipe!
★★★★★
Hi Lauren! I’m so happy this worked out for you with the adjustments!
This looks incredible, do you think it would work in a normal round cake tin? Or as a traybake? I don’t have a tube tin and don’t have the kitchen space to invest 🙁
It would probably work in a traybake, but it is a lot of batter so you may have to split it in half! If you have an extra large rectangular traybake that would work!