Cranberry orange cake with pistachios

A wonderfully moist orange cake with cranberries and pistachios – a bit like a cranberry loaf cake. Fragrant with orange zest and finished with a simple orange icing. It’s incredibly quick to make – just like muffins, you simply mix everything together. It keeps fresh for days and tastes so good it’s hard to stop at one slice… I may have eaten most of it myself – and I’m not even sorry ;). You can also use this recipe to make muffins.

Ingredients for cranberry orange cake with pistachios:

• 250 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 large egg
• 160 g caster sugar
• 240 ml kefir or buttermilk
• 80 ml sunflower or rapeseed oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 110 g cranberries (fresh or frozen), roughly chopped
• 65 g unsalted pistachios, roughly chopped

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg, sugar, kefir (or buttermilk), oil, vanilla and orange zest until combined. Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Mix gently with a whisk until just combined – do not overmix. Fold in the cranberries and pistachios.

Grease and flour a small loaf tin (21 × 11 cm), tapping out any excess flour. Transfer the batter into the tin and level the surface.

Bake at 160 – 170°C for about 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven, cool in the tin, then turn out onto a serving plate.

Ingredinets for orange icing:

• ½ cup icing sugar
• 1½–2 tablespoons boiling water
• finely grated zest of 1 orange

Mix all ingredients until smooth, starting with less water. Adjust the consistency by adding more icing sugar (if too thin) or a little more water (if too thick). Drizzle the icing over the cooled cake.

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction.