Chocolate Pistachio Swirl Cake

This recipe from my friend Heather has a super sweet history.  Heather’s mom was given the recipe from her own mother written on the outside of an envelope.  When Heather asked for the recipe, her mom continued the tradition and passed it on written on an envelope.

Thank you to Heather and her mom for allowing me to share this recipe. While the original recipe uses a box of white cake mix, this is not something that I usually have stocked in my kitchen. I wanted to see if I could get the same taste and texture without the cake mix. 

I am very happy with the results. I wrote up the recipe with both instructions using the box mix or without.  Go with the one that works best for you.  Also, I highly recommend using this baking spray so your cake comes out of the pan perfectly. I had so many broken bundt cakes until I discovered this magic spray.  You can grease and flour your pan by hand, but that is a lot of elbow work. Especially if you have a pan with lots of ridges. Every time I have used this spray, the cake falls right out of the pan. 

I did make the cake with a simple dusting of powdered sugar and it was equally delicious. That one got demolished before I could get any good pictures. This is the only one I managed to snap.

Go – grab your bundt pan and make yourself some Chocolate Pistachio Swirl Cake.  It is easy and delicious. 

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Chocolate Pistachio Swirl Cake

Course Dessert, Cake

Ingredients

Cake Mix - or sub 1 box of white cake mix

• 2½ cups all-purpose flour (320g)
• 1½ cups sugar (300g)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ cup butter (57g) ok to sub vegetable shortening or margarine
• ½ teaspoon salt

Start here if using box cake mix

• 1 3.4 oz package pistachio pudding mix
• ½ cup orange juice (114g)
• ½ cup vegetable oil (100g)
• ½ cup water (114g)
• 4 large eggs
• ¾ cup Hershey's chocolate syrup (228g)
• powdered sugar for dusting the finished cake if not using glaze

Optional Orange Glaze

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar (114g)
• 1½-2 tablespoons orange juice
• ½ teaspoon orange extract add extra juice if you don't have any

Instructions

Cake Mix

• Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl.

  Hand method- use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter is no longer detectable and the mix looks like fine crumbs.

  Food processor method- put 2 cups of the flour mixture into the food processor together with the butter. Process until the mixture is very fine. Add in the remaining flour mixture and stir well.

Start here if using box cake mix

• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry cake mix and the dry pudding mix. Add in the orange juice, water, oil, and eggs. Beat with a mixer until the batter is smooth.
• Grease and flour a bundt cake pan or spray the pan with cooking spray that contains flour. Do not use regular cooking spray, the cake will stick.
• Pour ⅔ of the batter into the prepared pan.
• To the remaining ⅓ of batter mix in the Hershey's syrup. Pour this chocolate batter over the plain batter in the pan. Use a knife to gently swirl the two batters to marbleize.
• Bake at 350°F for 1 hour until a wooden stick or cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool the entire pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then invert the cake directly onto the wire rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar or the orange glaze.

Orange Glaze

• Add the powdered sugar, orange extract, and the smaller amount of orange juice to a mixing bowl, whisk well until no lumps remain. You want it to be on the thick side, think honey. Add a bit more orange juice if it needs to be a bit thinner.
• Pour the glaze over the cake and allow it to solidify for 15 minutes.