Pistachio Olive Oil Cake

Pistachio is in my top three when it comes to gelato, so Francis-Olive’s pistachio olive oil cake over at Farm to Table Geek spoke to me from the moment I saw it (on Tasteologie, I think). When it comes to fall, pumpkin yells at you, “Hey, look at me! I’m orange! Like the leaves outside. It’s fall!” But this one, the pistachios and the olive oil lean over and whisper, “Psst. Over here. No, no. Over here. It’s fall.”

I’d only planned as far as procuring the nuts, so I used Greek yogurt in place of creme fraiche and omitted the orange flower water. The orange zest on its own provided the perfect whisper of citrus for me. This came out with a texture closer to a quick bread – so heed the warning about 2 or 3 passes on folding in the egg whites. The recipe is in metric measurements, so I’ll make it again soon to figure out the US “customary” measure…sometimes I can’t believe we’re 1 of 3 countries still not using the metric system.