Pistachio Cake with Chocolate Espresso Glaze

I haven't made a cake in a long time.

A really long time.

I actually made this cake about a month ago. I baked it up, frosted it, photographed it and then it was happily eaten by my family and friends. After that, um, I kinda forgot about it. Yup, I left this post on the back burner so to speak. So, ta-da, a month later here it is. Please tell me that I'm not the only blogger who does this? If I go back into my edits, I will confess, I have about a dozen other posts just sittin' and waitin'. So I just treat these lost posts like little presents that I bought and tucked away, and then comes the day I discover them again, and it's like opening up that present all over again. Ok, maybe it's not that good, but I do "oooh and ahhh" and say "man that was yummy" a lot when I re-discover them. Then I have to force myself to remember details about the recipe that I really should have jotted down at the time. Such is the life of a busy blogging Mom.

So getting back to my cake making....it's not that I don't like cake or that I don't like to make it, it's just one of those things that I don't think to make very often. Mostly saved for special occasions and birthdays, it's not on the top of my baking list, and that's just a shame isn't it?

I got this recipe from the Queen of the Blog-o-Sphere herself, the Pioneer Woman. One word totally got me...PISTACHIO. I love pistachio. I love the nuts. I love the ice cream. I love the pudding. Naturally I thought I'd love the cake.

I was right.

This recipe starts with a boxed cake mix I know, the horror of it all. Let me terrify you even more when I tell you that it uses boxed pudding mix as well!

Straight outta the cupboard and into the bowl.

That's the way I roll.



I tried to marbleize my batter, but when it comes to marbleizing, I always seem to screw it up, so all I did was take a knife and swirled it ever so slightly. Not much marbleizing going on, but it's got a nice swirl.

I added an Espresso Glaze to my cake cause it looked a little naked to me and really who wouldn't want to bite into a moist piece of cake topped with that chocolaty goodness?

Pistachio Cake with Chocolate Espresso Glaze
1 box white cake mix
1 package (4oz) pistachio pudding mix
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 whole eggs
3/4 cup chocolate syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour bundt pan.

Mix all ingredients but chocolate syrup and beat for two minutes on medium-high. Pour 3/4 of the batter into the bundt pan. Add chocolate syrup to the remaining batter and mix well. Pour chocolate-laced batter on top of the pistachio batter.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Note: You can use a knife to swirl chocolate batter into the pistachio batter for more of a marbled design.

Espresso Glaze
1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
½ cup Dutch processed cocoa
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
3 tablespoons strong brewed coffee - you may need an additional tablespoon to get it to the consistency you need.

Whisk together the sugar , cocoa & espresso powder. Add coffee and whisk until smooth. Drizzle over cake. You can put this in the fridge for a 1/2 hour or so to harden up a bit.