Pistachio Cake with Mohallabieh Cream

 

 

We all love a piece of cake. I love mine with stuff oozing out of it. That you all might have understood by now. For the new people onboard, see these posts, Chocolate Molten Lava CakeMolten Lava Mug Cake, Molten Lava Basbousa and you will get a clear picture about what i am a talking about. 

 

This dessert has a major similarity with the lebanese dessert Aish el Saraya. Both has the same mohallabieh part. Aish el saraya has it on top of the toasted bread and the mohallabieh is a little thick and set so that we can cut the pudding in clean pieces and serve.  But here i have used the same recipe for mohallabieh, but reduced the amount of cornflour used, to get a flowy yet thick custard which can be poured into the center of the pistachio cake. 

  

And now let me blab a little about my pistachio cake. This cake, my friends is a very very  easy cake to make. It doesn’t require flour. The flavor combination of pistachios, rosewater and cinnamon gives it an Arabic touch to it. I make this cake very often during Eid. These cakes are perfect as an Eid dessert.

I first had this cake when my sister made it long back. I had fallen in love with this cake that time itself. This cake is soo moist and delicious that it will be finished in no time. 

 

With that said, I do recommend that you try out this pistachio cake with mohallabieh cream because the flavours are like a match made in heaven! It is so delicious, you will struggle to hold back from seconds!! 🙂

Yields 12 cupcakes

NOTES:

✔️ Do not overbake cake, as it will reduce the softness. I over baked one batch of the cakes a teeny bit more and it was a little hard. Just keep on checking. 

✔️ Use large eggs. If you have small ones with you just use 5 eggs. 

✔️ When serving, heat the cake a little bit and serve it with cold mohallabieh cream. 

 

Ingredients:

For the pistachio cake:

Recipe courtesy: Hungry Rabbit

  • 2 cup Panko or regular bread crumbs
  • 1 cup pistachio, whole and roasted
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp rose water
  • 4 large eggs, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 113 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • Pistachios, toasted and ground, for decorating

Directions:

  1.   Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350℉. Butter cupcake pan or mini bundt pan. 
  2. In a mini food processor, add panko, pistachio, baking powder, and cinnamon. Process until finely chopped, set aside.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whisk eggs and sugar until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. The mixture should fall in a ribbon rather than a stream. Gently fold in nut mixture by hand. Add melted butter in a slow stream and fold into the batter with a rubber spatula.
  4. Divide batter into the prepared pan and bake until cake tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Do not bake for long. 
  5. Cool cake on wire rack for 10 minutes, remove cake from pan and set it on cooling rack. 

For the Mohallabieh cream:

  

  • 250 mL milk
  • 200g sweetened condensed milk 
  • 150 ml whipping cream 
  • 1 tsp orange blossom water 
  • 1 tsp rose water
  • 2 1/2 tbsp cornflour 

Directions:

  1.   Dissolve cornflour in 1/4 cup of cold milk and keep aside. 
  2. Combine together milk, cream, condensed milk and corn flour mixture in a heavy bottom pan and heat it on medium heat. Keep stirring till it gets smooth and little thick. Once it thickens add in the rose and orange blossom water. Turn off heat.
  3. Strain it through a strainer to remove any lumps that might have formed. I whipped mine with an electric beater for 2 minutes to get a satiny smooth cream. Forgot to click pics of these steps. 
  4. Refrigerate for 4-5 hrs or overnight. 

Assembling:

  1.   If you are making in mini bundt pans, just pour in the cream in the center hole of the cake and sprinkle chopped pistachios. 
  2. If you’re making in usual cupcake pan, scoop out some cake from the center and pour in the delicious Mohallabieh cream. 

 

Pistachio Cake with Mohallabieh Cream

A flourless pistachio cake with a thick and fragrant mohallabieh cream oozing from the centre.

Ingredients
  

INGREDIENTS

    For the pistachio cake

    • •2 cup Panko or regular bread crumbs
    • •1 cup pistachio whole and roasted
    • •2 teaspoons baking powder
    • •1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • •1 tsp rose water
    • •4 large eggs room temperature
    • •3/4 cup granulated sugar
    • •113 g unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly
    • •Pistachios toasted and ground, for decorating

    For mohallabieh cream

    • 250 mL milk
    • 200 g sweetened condensed milk
    • 150 ml whipping cream
    • 1 tsp orange blossom water
    • 1 tsp rose water
    • 2 1/2 tbsp cornflour

    Instructions
     

    DIRECTIONS

    • Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350℉. Butter cupcake pan or mini bundt pan.
    • In a mini food processor, add panko, pistachio, baking powder, and cinnamon. Process until finely chopped, set aside.
    • In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whisk eggs and sugar until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. The mixture should fall in a ribbon rather than a stream. Gently fold in nut mixture by hand. Add melted butter in a slow stream and fold into the batter with a rubber spatula.
    • Divide batter into the prepared pan and bake until cake tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Do not bake for long.
    • Cool cake on wire rack for 10 minutes, remove cake from pan and set it on cooling rack.

    To make mohallabieh cream

    • Dissolve cornflour in 1/4 cup of cold milk and keep aside.
    • Combine together milk, cream, condensed milk and corn flour mixture in a heavy bottom pan and heat it on medium heat. Keep stirring till it gets smooth and little thick. Once it thickens add in the rose and orange blossom water. Turn off heat.
    • Strain it through a strainer to remove any lumps that might have formed. I whipped mine with an electric beater for 2 minutes to get a satiny smooth cream. Forgot to click pics of these steps.
    • Refrigerate for 4-5 hrs or overnight.

    Assembling

    • If you are making in mini bundt pans, just pour in the cream in the center hole of the cake and sprinkle chopped pistachios.
    • If you’re making in usual cupcake pan, scoop out some cake from the center and pour in the delicious Mohallabieh cream.

    Notes

    NOTES:
    * Do not overbake cake, as it will reduce the softness. I over baked one batch of the cakes a teeny bit more and it was a little hard. Just keep on checking.
    * Use large eggs. If you have small ones with you just use 5 eggs.
    * When serving, heat the cake a little bit and serve it with cold mohallabieh cream.

      

      

    26 thoughts on “Pistachio Cake with Mohallabieh Cream

        1. Hii! We get rose water easily everywhere in kuwait and other middleeastern countries. If it is not available in the place you stay, try getting it from any local middle eastern or indian store or else try online.

    1. Cake with breadcrumbs??? That really sounds interesting… Got to try this for sure very soon, time to pull out my mini bundt pan! 🙂 And the muhallabieh… grrr… I am trying to diet but seeing this itself, I gained a kg… 🙁 😛 As usual, MaShaAllah, amazing pics…

    2. Beautiful presentation! I used to live a couple of houses down from a Lebanese family and I recognize all these ingredients. Your minis must taste sensational!

    3. Hi Sadia, i would like to make this cake as it looks delish, can i substitute the butter to olive oil or reduce it?
      And can i change the panko to cornmeal, or this will change the whole idea of it?
      Thanks

      1. Hello nabeela!
        I wouldn’t recommend using olive oil and cornmeal. You will get a moist cake when you use butter. So I don’t think reducing the quantity of butter will be a good idea.

    4. Hey Sadia, I stumbled upon your recipe and the combination of pistachio cake and muhalabbia interested me. I read through your post and scrolled down to the recipe. And I got stumped. The method given under “pistachio cake” is, I think, for another recipe (and I’m sure it would be yummy :D)
      I hope you don’t mind me pointing this out or else I surely would have made a grilled chicken pistachio cake LOL!
      Anyhow I will surely be trying this cake out soon now that it’s Ramadan here where I live

      Take care!

      1. Heyy Blessy!
        I got stumped too for a minute reading your comment. I quickly checked the post, but I got relieved to see that it does have the pistachio cake recipe itself and not that of grilled chicken, hehe! Wonder how it appeared like that when you opened. Please check again and let me know if you are getting the proper recipe ok. Thank you. 🙂

    5. The cakes look elegant, can’t wait to try… pinning recipe! Although I must point out that technically there is flour in the cake via breadcrumbs… I’m wondering if almond flour would make it gluten free…

    6. Hello
      These cakes look amazing!
      Is it possible to replace the bread crumbs with semolina?
      Thank you 🙂

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