Recipe Review: Cardamom Pistachio Carrot Cake

Baking has been a source of comfort for me during the times of quarantine. I stumbled upon this recipe from Bon Appetit and I had so many shelled pistachios sitting in the pantry from God knows when so I figured why not give it a try! And let me tell you, I was not disappointed, this cake was delicious and I can’t wait to try it again. Keep reading below for my thoughts!

Ingredients

Vegetable oil (for pan)
3 large eggs, room temperature
3 medium carrots
1 cup (2 sticks) plus 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
1 cup (130 g) raw pistachios
1 cup (packed; 200 g) dark brown sugar
¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar, divided
1¾ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
1½ tsp. Diamond Crystal or ¾ tsp. Morton kosher salt, divided
1½ tsp. ground cardamom
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
1½ cups (188 g) all-purpose flour
½ cup carrot juice
½ cup heavy cream

Link to recipe here.

What I liked

Learning some new techniques! Browning butter, toasting nuts in butter, making a glaze, the importance of not stirring I love picking up new techniques that I can maybe use elsewhere.
I also liked that it called for cardamom, a spice that I always keep on hand but don’t use often enough.

Any substitutions

I didn’t have carrot juice or feel like making any so I used the last of my orange juice. I also didn’t have enough butter so I did 1 stick and ¼ cup of oil.

Next time

I will buy unshelled pistachios, while it was semi cathartic to shell all the pistachios myself I don’t think I’ll want to spend that much time on that task next time around.
I definitely need to watch the pistachios with a closer eye, I followed everything to the timer and in reality, I should have stopped toasting them right after I started to smell them all nice and toasty.
I would have liked the pistachios to have provided more texture in the cake, aka more CRUNCH! I wonder if it has anything to do with the cooking in butter or chopping. Going to have to play around with those.
Going to try different glazes, I am thinking of sugar or chocolate, something fun.
I would like to have a food processor to grate the carrots because that was not cute, especially since I had baby carrots on hand.