This is a twist on one of my favorite cakes ever, the coffee cake because it has chocolate in the batter not only as part of the filling. So you get fluffy cake, lots of chocolate flavor, cinnamon streusel and pistachios to top it off.
Something interesting happened that led me to make this cake. If you google chocolate coffee cake, you hardly find any. I found one after searching a lot.
All coffee cakes have chocolate as an addition, usually in the filling, as chips or
a ripple, but there are none with a dark chocolate batter. So this chocolate
pistachio coffee cake was born.
About coffee cakes
They are dense and rich cakes that include a streusel ripple in the middle, top or both.
They are sweet, perfect for brunch and can be adapted to most cake flavors, like the Pumpkin Coffee Cake that is so popular in this post.
This is a coffee cake, simple in spite of the excentric pistachios, with sour cream in the batter, a streusel on top and perfect with an infusion. Are you a tea or a coffee person? It is a tea cake too, don't worry.
Brown sugar
It gives a slight caramel undertone to this cake and I find it essential. But you can make it with white sugar and you'll still have a fantastic cake.
It also adds moisture and who doesn't like a moist cake, right? And it goes great with pistachios.
Sour cream
This is a must when making this type of cakes and you'll see why when you take a bite that is rich, dense but not heavy and just plain amazing!
It adds a lot of moisture and structure, so it holds the streusel in place better.
Related recipes you might like:
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Chocolate Pistachio Coffee Cake
This is a twist on one of my favorite cakes ever, the coffee cake because it has chocolate in the batter not only as part of the filling. So you get fluffy cake, lots of chocolate flavor, cinnamon streusel and pistachios to top it off.
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Ingredients
For the topping:
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¾ cup (150g) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons (30g) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (100g) pistachios, shelled and coarsely chopped
For the cake:
- 1 ¾ cups (245g) all purpose or cake flour
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (115g) unsalted butter
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- 3 eggs, at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
- ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
For the topping:
- In a bowl mix dry ingredients, add butter in pieces and mix with your fingers until clumpy.
- Add pistachios, mixing lightly. Reserve.
For the cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF / 180ºC.
- Butter and dust with cocoa or flour a 13x9 inch (22x33cm) springform cake pan.
- Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda and salt together in a bowl. Reserve.
- In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add both sugars gradually while beating, until you have a light and creamy mixture, about 3 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla.
- Beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, add them dry in three additions, alternating with the sour cream in two additions. Don't overbeat at this point or the cake will be tough.
- Add chocolate chips. Pour into the prepared cake pan and sprinkle the topping on top.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let cool on wire rack, unmold, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.
- It keeps, wrapped, for a few days.
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 30
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: chocolate coffee cake
Adapted from Cakes, by Maida Heatter
Earl C Williams says
An excellent, excellent cake. The topping with the roasted and salted pistachios makes this really pop. The hint of cinnamon was a wonderful surprise.
Thank you Paula.
★★★★★
Paula Montenegro says
Glad you like it Earl! I think pistachios and chocolate are not used together enough, haha!
Melanie @ Just Some Salt and Pepper says
I had no clue food blog search existed! Also, I'm on a pistachio dessert kick and this sounds wonderful!
anna @ annamayeveryday says
Love chocolate, love pistachios and coffee - what a cake!
mividaenundulce says
Looks delicious, and the best thing s that I can stop searching in the web for a recipe like this.
Dana @ Simply Romanesco says
This cake looks so rich and decadent! Total perfection, and I love the pistachios in there; I usually use walnuts, but the pistachios look so pretty and I bet they work beautifully with chocolate 🙂
laurasmess.me says
What a beautiful cake Paula... I love the dark, dark chocolatey sugar topping. You're right, it perfectly shows off the beautiful pistachios. I hope that you're plowing through the tax stuff and the other accumulated work. Argh, what a frustrating time of year. Thanks for this lovely recipe, I definitely need to try it soon! xx
Abbe@This is How I Cook says
Taxes? I'm glad you had this cake to help you through! And It looks like a great one!
Nancy @ gottagetbaked says
Oh Paula - this cake is a stunner! What a delicious flavour combination. I would love to bake this and have it lying around my apartment for whenever I need a bite of cake (which is pretty often, so this cake wouldn't last long!). And thank you thank you thank you for introducing me to the food blog search. It's way better than google at bringing up recipes from only food bloggers.
Karen @ Lemon Grove Cake Diaries says
What a great idea to use pistachios, what could be better than pistachios and chocolate a winning combination in my eyes!