Weekend Cooking...Pistachio Cake

Wait a second, let me pull my soapbox over here for a minute or two.

OK, I am a little sensitive about Saint Patrick's Day.
I don't like the jokes, actually often ethically offensive jokes, about the Irish. Even if someone who is "Irish' tells it.
To me it is a religious day, a celebration of the patron saint of Ireland, the place of my father's birth and the birthplace of all my ancestors.
So to make it a 'silly' day, with drunkenness, and leprechauns and Four Leaf Clovers (Shamrocks, folks, have three leaves, like the Trinity) just grates on me something fierce.

But the worst of it all must be green beer!
Beer should not be green! It is an offense against one of the greatest, most ancient, beverages of all time. Do not dye your beer! Please.

 

But now cake...cake can be green.
So when the Niece made this cake a few weeks ago, and it was quite tasty, I thought..Saint Patrick's Day!!
A simple quick cake, using a box cake and a box of pistachio pudding. But while the cake was quite good, and a lovely shade of green due to a little dye, it was lacking in pistachio taste. So in order to up the pistachio flavor, I add some...pistachios!
I would have added some pistachio extract too, if I could have found it. You can buy it online..but that seemed a little extreme. Put if you have some, I would certainly replace the almond extract with it.
I also decreased the food color a bit from the original recipe when I made it, which I think was a mistake. If you are going green, go green!

It is a nice moist cake, very tasty. And Green!!

Pistachio Bundt Cake

Ingredients
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant pistachio pudding mix
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
7 drops green food coloring
1 cup chopped pistachios, 3/4 for batter and 1/4 to top cake


Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan.
In a large bowl mix together cake mix and pudding mix. Make a well in the center and pour in eggs, water, oil, almond extract and green food coloring. Blend ingredients, then beat for 2 minutes at medium speed.
Pour into prepared 10 inch tube pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly pressed. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.


Meanwhile, make a glaze of confectionery sugar and a little milk and a tiny dash of vanilla. You could, id desired, make the icing green also, with a couple of drops of green dye. As soon as you pour the glaze over the cool cake, sprinkle with chopped pistachios and let harden a bit.

 

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This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

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