sour cream cake with pistachio whip
and roasted strawberries when I originally posted august 17,2022
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Now that we’ve entered summer- dinner parties, picnics, beach hangs and BBQs are in full swing. And this is the dessert i’m bringing to all of them (so invite me to yours bestie). The base, sour cream cake, is versatile & balanced enough to eat on its own as a snack cake. It’s rich and dense with a fine crumb making the perfect vessel to be loaded up with swirls of something light & airy like pistachio whip. The best part is you can really zhuzh it up with anything you’d like but I’m really loving it with roasted strawberries, a hefty drizzle of Graza olive oil, and of course a sprinkle of edible flowers. As the seasons change, you can swap out the strawberries for whatever you have access to. Stone fruit season is creeping in & this would pair incredibly well with fresh grilled peaches. Enough of my babbling, here’s the recipe <3
Ingredients:
Sour Cream Cake:
250 grams granulated sugar
235 grams AP flour
1 + 1/4 teaspoon baking powder (5 grams)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (2 grams)
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (4 grams)
140 grams butter, room temp
125 grams eggs (approx 2 whole eggs + 1 yolk)
100 grams buttermilk
115 grams sour cream
30 grams olive oil
12 grams vanilla extract
Pistachio Honey Whip:
530 grams heavy cream
45 grams pistachio paste
3 grams kosher salt
35 grams honey
85 grams granulated sugar
Roasted Strawberries:
about a pound of strawberries
enough sugar to coat them
a nice big ole squeeze of lemon juice
Directions:
For the strawberries:
If you plan on adding roasted strawberries I would prep them first. You can even roast them the day before you plan to make the cake to cut down on prep day of.
Preheat your oven to 220F/105C.
Wash and cut the tops off of your strawberries and place them in a bowl. You can keep them whole or cut them in half. I’ll usually make that decision based on how big the berries are. If they’re all on the smaller side I keep them whole and larger ones i’ll cut in half.
Toss the berries in just enough sugar to evenly coat them (If you make these outside of strawberry season adjust the amount of sugar based on how tart the berry tastes to you) and a squeeze of lemon juice. The lemon juice adds an acidic balance to the sweet berries but also helps them retain a nice red color!
Place into a baking dish or sheet pan cut sides down.
Roast for about 45 minutes to an hour. They should hold some shape but still feel jammy to the touch.
Chill to room temp, then place into a smaller container (juice and all) to chill completely in the fridge until you’re ready to use them.
For the cake:
Start by preheating your oven to 340F/171C. And mise out all of your ingredients (which basically means to get everything weighed out. Nothing is more heartbreaking than getting halfway through a recipe and realizing you don’t have baking powder… not speaking from personal experience or anything…)
Begin by whisking together your buttermilk, sour cream, olive oil and vanilla until homogenous, set aside.
Mix together your flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. To this you’ll add your butter and mix until it resembles coarse sand. You should be able to clump some up in your hand and have it hold its shape but still crumble back to sand without leaving a super buttery residue on your hands.
To this you’ll add your eggs, one at a time, on low speed. It will look a little lumpy and weird- don’t worry this is normal.
With the mixer still on low speed you’ll stream in half of your sour cream mixture. Stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl before adding the rest. After all our the wets have been added mix for about a minute.
Weigh out your batter in to 2- 8” cake rounds lined with parchment paper & non-stick spray, 500 grams in each. Even out your batter using a small offset spatula
Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until browned around the edges and evenly golden on top. FYI: this may change depending on your oven. 35 minutes is a good time to check and adjust your timing accordingly after that(:
Cool to room temp while you prepare your whip.
For the whip:
You’ll want to make this when you are ready to assemble your cake.
Place all of your ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whip on medium speed until stiff peaks form.
To Assemble:
Put down your first layer of cake and brush it with some of the juices accumulated from roasting your strawberries.
Place half of your whipped cream on the cake and spread evenly using a spatula or the back of a spoon. Add a layer of roasted strawberries and a drizzle of olive oil.
Add the second layer of cake, also brushing with some strawberry syrup. Top with the rest of your whipped cream and create swirls with your spatula. Add more berries and a drizzle of the syrup and well as olive oil. If you’d like you can sprinkle with edible flowers and let your inner Noreen Wasti out <3
Keep refrigerated until you’re ready to serve.
Some notes:
If you have a nut allergy, don’t like pistachio, do not have access to pistachio paste or don’t think it will complement the fruit you decide to use, you can fully omit the pistachio paste from the whipped cream recipe.
I’ve found the best way to make smaller batched of whipped cream is using a method I learned through Paola Velez. In which you place your ingredients in a tall vessel (nothing made of glass!!!) and use an immersion blender to blitz everything together. The result is thicker and much more dense than if you used a whisk. Though i realize not everyone owns an immersion blender, but if you do i recommend trying out the method at least once and seeing if you like the results (:
Some people are very anti olive oil on top of cake… weird but okay you do you. You do no not have to add that drizzle if you don’t want to. Once this recipe leaves my finger tips it’s yours to play around and experiment with. Though the flavor is very complementary to the olive oil in the cake. Make sure you’re using GOOD quality olive oil- it makes a world of difference. I’m currently LOVING Graza, and you can use code “IBAKEMISTAKES” to save $5 off your first purchase of their Sizzle + Drizzle Duo set. (This post is not sponsored, though I do receive a small commission when the code is used. I would never endorse/promote a product did not use personally and didn’t love).