For a party we planned on hosting on Saturday, I wanted to make another Milk Bar
recipe. So without any further ado, here's my breakdown of this project:
Pistachio Paste
![Pistachio Paste](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7446/13924686972_b5e4cf57e6_t.jpg)
This is an item that is hard to find here in Toronto: most stores either don't carry it, or the quality isn't high. Gone are the days when I'd travel across the city to source an ingredient. Instead, I decided to try and make it myself following
this recipe, attributed to Pierre Hérme. A bulk vendor in Kensington Market offered both shelled and unshelled unsalted Iranian pistachios, but I didn't like the look of the dusty unshelled ones, so the three of us sat down and plucked the nuts out of their shells over a few nights. I calculated I needed a double batch of the recipe, and followed its straightforward procedure. Toasting the nuts helped to loose their skins, which I rubbed off to reduce bitterness. At first, in the food processor, the nut mixture was just a coarse mass of chopped, syrupy nuts. With a generous amount of sunflower oil trickled in through the feed tube, the mixture began to move. After 5 minutes or so, it turned into a smooth, green paste. The taste of this homemade pistachio paste is intense: very nutty and rich, and quite sweet. It differs from a nut butter, in that there is added sugar and oil. But from reading other experiences online, a cake made with pistachio butter does not turn out the same. I kept the finished paste in a glass container, and refrigerated it for the week.
Milk Crumbs
![Milk Crumbs](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7224/13948249604_947c7fa3ea_t.jpg)
On (Good) Friday morning, I made one recipe of milk crumbs, replacing the wheat flour with brown rice flour (since it was Passover). Only half the batch is required for this cake.
Pistachio Cake
![Pistachio Cake](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2939/13947847373_a9e6de3c94_t.jpg)
Later on Friday, I worked on the cake. Since the nut paste was sweet, and Tosi's taste is already sweet, I reduced the confectioner's sugar in the recipe by half. I opted for the gluten-free option, which replaces AP flour with ground almonds, so that guests observing Passover would still be able to partake. And instead of pistachio oil (another hard to find, and/or expensive item), I used hazelnut oil (also expensive, but something which I had on hand). Since I still don't have a quarter sheet pan, I improvised using a half sheet pan, and a barrier made from a cake ring, parchment and a Silpat (see the photo). After baking 22 minutes, it was still a bit wet, so I let it go longer. Unfortunately, I forgot about it for a bit, and by the time I took it out, it had turned quite brown. The texture is quite delicate and crumbly, as to be expected for something made with egg whites and nuts.
Lemon Curd
![Lemon Curd](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7339/13924689986_1e3b25b10c_t.jpg)
This recipe is unusual to me in that it calls for the use of a blender as well as gelatin. Normally, lemon curd is a lot of egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and butter. Here, in Milk Bar's recipe, the first three ingredients plus a lot of zest, are blended together. The 64 oz Vitamix container had no problem with the small quantity of ingredients, but incorporated a lot of air into the mixture. On the stove, the mixture came to a boil quickly but fortunately did not scramble. Back in the blender, with a few knobs of cold butter and the bloomed gelatin, it took no time to melt and emulsify the fat to form a smooth, buttery and lemony curd. Absolutely delicious!
Pistachio Frosting
![Pistachio Frosting](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7452/13948253164_4fa17fbbaa_t.jpg)
I think the butter was a bit too cold, as it formed lumps while creaming it with the sugar. But with lots of whipping after incorporating the pistachio butter, it became homogeneous. I was pleased with the light green colour, as many other people who've made and photographed this cake on the Web had yellowish or brownish frostings.
Cake Assembly
![Assembly](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2902/13948254034_4112887cbe_t.jpg)
To be ready for Saturday afternoon, I assembled the cake on Friday evening. Using the same setup as I employed for the
previous layer cake, I placed the acetate strip inside a springform band, atop a parchment lined baking sheet. To keep the already-high calorie count in check, I skipped moistening the cake rounds with pistachio oil. The rounds were very soft and I couldn't transfer an entire disc from the baked layer into the ring without it breaking. Perhaps because my sheet cake was spread slightly larger than a quarter-sheet pan, my finished cake was not a full 6" high.
Tada
![Pistachio Layer Cake](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3673/13948256354_afc877c44b_n.jpg)
This is another winner from Milk Bar. Nutty, crunchy, soft, tangy, sweet… there's a lot going on here, but it comes together beautifully.
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