Elderflower and pistachio cake

I really love this cake

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Although I know to expect rain, it always surprises me. The ground here already looks like July. It needed it, the soaking of everything and everyone. Gentle but persistent sideways rain, silvery, almost lavender when the sun shines on it. It makes only a gentle patter on the windows, not like the great thuds of winter rain. This fine rain gets you very wet, the kind of wet that makes you blink the water from your eyelashes and shake the drops from your hood. This rain brings the smell of the earth, the green. The dampness stays with me, in my bones for hours after. But at this time of year when it's not freezing outside, that feels ok.

I’ve just made hot chocolate for Dylan (who got soaked to his skin at football) and tea for me and we are both having a slice of this cake. Esca is sleeping in a pushchair a metre or so from the kitchen table. It's half-term.

I’ve been meaning to make elderflower cordial but I’ve not found a window of time bigger than 10 minutes. So instead of a trip to the park, I picked a few sun-facing (pre-rain) heads and held them in one hand while I pushed the pushchair back with the other.

I really love this cake. It's a recipe from my first book A Modern Way to Eat that I’ve been making for close to 20 years. I wrote it for a column about elderflowers for a food magazine that no longer exists. Over the years, I’ve made a few small changes. I've replaced some of the pistachios with ground almonds for both cost and texture, and I've completely rethought the icing. I also now cook it in a bigger tin, which gives a thinner (but still generous) cake with more crust and that's the bit I like the most.

These are the reasons I love this cake;

• It's made with polenta and ground nuts (no flour), which gives it a very pleasing texture. It's got more of a chew than a cake made with plain flour. It also gives it a more interesting layered flavour, sweet, deep, bright.

• The nuts and a soaking of elderflower cordial while it is hot make it a cake that does not dry out. You could even use the ‘M’ word here.

• The yoghurt (there is also butter) gives a really great golden crust.

• The icing again features yoghurt, elderflower cordial and icing sugar. The yoghurt and the cordial give a pleasing tartness.

• I use golden icing sugar, which makes the chicest icing I’ve ever seen, a light caramel drip. Next to a few frothy elderflowers, the tonal whites and taupes of this cake are just so good.

Esca has woken up now and I’m feeding him the last crumbs of my cake by pressing my finger onto the crumbed plate and then into his mouth, he's pleased. I hope you like it enough to do the same.

Elderflower and pistachio cake

Where I live in Hackney elderflowers fill the bushes between late May and early June. I use them to make cordial, sometimes, and to top this cake when they are around.

They are a flavour all of their own. Heady, grassy and lemony and for a couple of months of the year they surround us. This cake though, can be made year-round with shop brought elderflower cordial. Instead of flour I use pistachios and polenta, which gives the cake a baklava-like feeling. You really need a food processor to grind the pistachios up, so if you don’t have one, use all ground almonds instead.

I used a fine (sometimes labelled quick cook) polenta. A coarser polenta (bramata) polenta and the recipe will work well, but the cake will have a slightly grainier texture.

One friend said she was going to name her firstborn after this cake. I am not sure there could be higher praise.

Makes a 23cm cake, about 10-12 slices

For the cake

125g butter, at room temperature
250g soft light brown sugar
125g Greek yoghurt
125g ground almonds
125g of shelled pistachio nuts
200g polenta (I used a fine polenta)
1 teaspoon baking powder
grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
3 organic or free-range eggs
150ml elderflower cordial

For the elderflower icing

150g icing sugar
1 tablespoon Greek yoghurt
1 tablespoon elderflower cordial
A handful of pistachio nuts, crushed

Before you start

Preheat your oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/gas 6. Grease and line the base of a 23cm springform cake tin.

Cream the butter and sugar

Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and cream together until light and fluffy, this will take a few minutes with a stand mixer or a handheld whisk, a little longer by hand. Stir in the yoghurt, if it splits a little don't worry.

Blitz the nuts and add the dry

Now blitz the pistachios to dust in a food processor – don’t blitz them too much, though, or they will turn to butter. Add the blitzed pistachios, ground almonds, polenta, baking powder and lemon zest and juice to the butter mixture and mix well. Then crack in the eggs, one by one, and mix in.

Pour into the tin and bake

Pour into the lined cake tin and bake for 45–50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave in the tin. While its still warm make a few holes in the warm cake with a skewer, then gently pour the elderflower cordial slowly over the cake, allowing it time to seep in. Leave the cake in the tin until cool enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

Make the icing and finish the cake

For the icing, mix the yoghurt, icing sugar or honey and elderflower cordial until smooth. Spread over the completely cooled cake and top with the pistachios.

Storage and freezing

Wrap in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight container for up to 4 days. You can freeze un-iced cake for up to 2 months.

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