Pistachio Cake

Tis the season for green cake! I'm talking about Pistachio cake. Here is a simple doctored cake mix recipe I used from allrecipes.com. The cake is very moist and dense. Normally this would be made in a bundt pan, but I wanted to decorate it for an Open House for Aaron's work, so I used two 8 inch square pans. I also made a filling of pistachio mousse from a box of pistachio pudding mixed with cool whip.

I meant for this cake to look like a tin of chocolates, but wasn't very happy with how it turned out as it was a little difficult to get square edges. Maybe a round cake would have been more forgiving. Needless to say, I need a lot of fondant practice.










INGREDIENTS
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix (I used a french vanilla cake because I already had one on hand)
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


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.