This pistachio vanilla sponge cake is perfect for your tea parties. Made without any artificial flavors or food coloring, moist pistachio cake is made with ground pistachios and vanilla extract. Serve with a dollop of fresh cream or a dust of sugar and you got yourself a nice and delicious treat that’s so easy to bake.


I love anything with Pistachios. Be it pistachio gelato, pistachio kulfi or pistachio cake – I’m sold. I always look for ways to add pistachios into my cooking and baking. Pistachios pair wonderfully with hints of rose water and almond flavors. My all time favorite is this Persian Love Cake that bursts with flavors from pistachios and rose water.
There is nothing like a Pistachio Vanilla Sponge Cake. This cake is spongy, moist and with every bite you get some nutty pistachios.
For the undiluted pistachio cake flavor, I have ground shelled pistachios into tiny little chunks and added them directly into my vanilla cake batter. Since I haven’t used any pistachio essence, you mayn’t get a strong pistachio flavor but you will taste light pistachio on every bite.
A beautiful spring or summer time cake – even this pistachio vanilla sponge cake will make such a pretty Mother’s day cake.
WHY YOU WILL LOVE THIS CAKE
No artificial flavor added. This cake is as pure as it gets.
A fresh spring time cake that’s light, moist and spongy.
Pairs so well with a cup of green tea or a cup of coffee. Makes a good tea cake or coffee cake.
Best for taking as road trip snack cake. With the spring vacation around the corner, bake this pistachio vanilla cake to take with you for casual snacking.
Made with fresh pistachios and pistachios are so good for you.
Since this cake is made without butter, the cake has a longer shelf life.
INGREDIENTS USED IN THIS PISTACHIO CAKE RECIPE
- Pistachios: I have used unsalted raw pistachios. However, the cake is still sweet even if you use salted pistachios. You can use Salted pistachios too for extra flavor! Pistachios are readily available in all the grocery stores. Since I use a lot of pistachios, I buy them in bulk from Cost co.
- Homemade Cake Flour: I have used all purpose flour mixed with corn flour to make my own cake flour. Used the instructions from cake flour substitute.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda
- Salt: Salt adds flavor. Skip salt if you are using salted pistachios.
- Light Olive Oil: You can use a vegetable oil too.
- Eggs: two eggs are used.
- Sugar: I used granulated sugar to sweeten this cake.
- Milk: I used a whole milk to keep the cake ultra moist.
- Vanilla Extracts.

TOOLS FOR MAKING THE PISTACHIO CAKE
Anyone who wants to bake a cake, needs to know their tools and equipment make their baking a success.
HAND MIXER:
A hand mixer will be handy. But hey, it doesn’t have to be fancy at all. Any basic hand mixer will work. If you don’t have a hand mixer, then use a balloon whisk. However, I have noticed that, any cake that has eggs in the recipe, requires a hand mixer to fluff the egg with sugar and oil.
MIXING BOWLS:
Last year, my friend gifted me 3 stackable mixing bowls. They have been a life saver. Its stainless steel and deep. My batter doesn’t make a mess anymore . 😛
CAKE PANS
I have a good selection of cake pans starting from round to rectangular to squares to Bundt. But you don’t have to collect cake pans if you aren’t as crazy as me. I would suggest you stick to the basic cake tins. In this recipe I have used a round cake tin in 9 inch.
PARCHAMENT PAPER
A must have for me. Unless I’m baking brownies, I always always line my cake tins with parchment paper.
FOOD PROCESSOR
In this pistachio cake recipe, I have used the food processor to break down the pistachios. You can invest in a small food processor if you use a lot of nuts and spices in your baking.
FLOUR SIFTER
Again, I always use a sifter to separate and break up clumps in dry ingredients such as flour, as well as to aerate and combine them. It helps with making the cake spongy and airy.

STEP BY STEP METHOD TO BAKE PISTACHIO SPONGE CAKE
- Make pistachio crumbs. Use your food processor to break down the nuts. Be sure that you get a pistachio crumb. Don’t over do the crumbing part or else you will end up having pistachio butter. Pistachio butter is great but not for this cake recipe.
- Sift the dry ingredients together.
- Cream the oil and sugar together.
- Beat in eggs one by one.
- Add the vanilla extract
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients together.
- Pour in the milk. Mix just until combined– the batter will be slightly thick.
- Bake.
- Let the cakes cool completely.

TIPS AND VARIATIONS
Add a few drops of green food coloring to give the cake a slight green tint just like pistachios, remember we don’t only taste out food but we eat with our eyes too.
Salted actually adds extra flavor! You can use roasted or raw (not roasted), whichever you prefer.
Raw pistachios (not roasted and salted) tend to have a slightly more saturated, brighter green color than roasted pistachios and will give your cake a perfect pale green hue.
That being said, if you are looking for that bright green color (for St. Patrick’s Day perhaps!), you can absolutely add in green food coloring to give your cake a deeper color!
OTHER CAKES YOU SHOULD GIVE A TRY
Tres Leches Cake or 3-Milk Cake
Sandesh Cake with Saffron and Rose Water
and some simple EGG FREE Tea Cakes like, Coconut Loaf Cake
Orange Loaf Cake (Butter Free, Egg Free)

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Pistachio Vanilla Sponge Cake
Equipment
- 1 Food Processor Food Processor is used to make the raw pistachios into a crumb
- 1 Hand Mixer Hand Mixer is used to mix the ingredients
Ingredients
DRY INGREDIENTS
- 2 Cups All purpose flour mixed with 2 tbsp corn flour
- 1/2 Cup Raw pistachios pulsed into crumbs
- 2 Tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 Tsp Baking soda
- 1 Tbsp Nuts for sprinkling on top
- Pinch of salt
WET INGREDIENTS
- 1 Cup Sugar (white)
- 3/4 Cup Light olive oil extra for coating the cake tin
- 1 Cup Milk (full fat & room temperature)
- 2 Eggs (room temperature)
- 1 TBSP Vanilla extract
Instructions
PREPARE
- Pre heat oven to 350 degree F
- Grease your baking tin with some oil and line it with a piece of parchment paper
- SIFT THE DRY INGREDIENT
- With the help of a flour sifter, sift the all purpose flour, corn flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Keep it aside.
PREPARE THE WET INGREDIENT
- In a bowl, beat sugar and oil for 1 minute.
- Add eggs one by one and beat till fluffy. NOTE The eggs should be at room temperature.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix gently.
- Mix in the pistachio crumbs and mix.
- Finally stir in the milk. Sprinkle some nuts on top
BAKE THE PISTACHIO VANILLA SPONGE CAKE
- Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Notes
- Use any other nuts like almonds, walnuts if you don’t have pistachios when you make this sponge cake
- Use a dash of lemon or rose essence to make this a Pistachio Lemon Cake
- This cake can be a base for a great layered and frosted cake.
- Don’t let the batter sit too long before putting it in the oven
- Fold the flour into the mix using a wooden ladle instead of the hand mixer.
- Keep all the cake ingredients in room temperature.
- Bake the cake in the middle of the oven
- Preheat the oven before you place the cake batter in the oven. It is important to start baking the cake at the right temperature.
Hi can i replace oil with butter ?
Hi can I replace oil with butter ?
Salt and Vanilla extract are not mentioned under ingredients list. Could you please mention their quantity?
2 Cup u said what the accurate quantity of each each cup
2 cups = 240 gram
A pinch of salt and 1 table spoon vanilla
Yes you can
Yes
I loved the cake. Thanks for making my day. Followed this amazing blog!! Keep enlightening us with Good Recipes!
What is the pan size here? i tried 2 times, but it was hollow from the bottom. I noticed the pictorial recipe is different from the steps mentioned.
What are the dimensions of the cake pan used in recipe?
Hi, I love making your eggless cakes. Thank you for sharing the recipes. Please can you confirm how much baking powder I should use and how much baking soda if I am going to make this cake eggless? The ingredients list mentions powder but the recipe method says soda. Hoping to make this in the next couple of days, look forward to hearing from you x
This sounds delicious! I love simple recipes like this because you can do so much with them.
Perfect as I’m not crazy about cakes with lots of icing.
Pistachio has been one of my favorite cake flavors for years. I can’t wait to try your recipe! Looks delicious.
Perfect cake to make for Easter. I will try my best to make one. Pistachio is a yummy cake flavor, and the added crunch it would give would be so nice.
Yummyy, pistachio and vanilla. I’ve been planning to bake a cake, this is the sign!
Sponge cake is so good. And I’m glad I read this post in the morning because I picked up some pistachios for work and I surely would have forgotten them.
I do love most anything made with pistachios. A soft vanilla porter would go really well with this.
This Pistachio Vanilla Sponge Cake looks so awesome! Now I’m hungry and going to have to try it!
I haven’t really tried making my own sponge cake yet and I am so glad I was able to see this article. I love pistachio nuts too so I guess this will be really great! So excited to bake my own!
so fluffy and really delicious!! the pistachios was lovely!
Such delicious flavor in this cake!
Who doesn’t like a good cake!