Gluten Free Pistachio Raspberry Rose Cake

Happy mid-week treat time to everyone! A huge thanks to everyone who is fighting the good fight and having tough discussions with family, friends, and with themselves (especially us white folks). One thing we value at Sisters Sans Gluten, in addition to awesome gluten free baked goods, is a responsibility to always self-examine ourselves – life long, not just when you’re in college or when you befriend someone who’s BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color), but every day. We all hold within ourselves built up prejudices based on family teaching, religious teaching, or even one-off experiences that we let shape our ideology too much. So, every morning, it’s on us to hold ourselves accountable for our actions, thoughts, and decisions. It’s an awesome thing to be able to do – and keeps us from falling into static, self-centered, or hate-driven ruts. Why not have a slice of cake during your afternoon self-reflection to make it all the sweeter?

This gluten free pistachio raspberry rose cake is the perfect accompaniment to serious life evaluation, and any other meaningful event (like birthdays!). I’ve gotten to make this cake for a few birthdays and friend gifts so far, and each time it’s a joy to make and decorate. A big thanks to my mom for letting me raid the garden for some incredible blooms to decorate the cake with one time – miniature double white petunias, bright red roses, fragrant gardenias, mimosa blossoms, and a few sprigs of gorgeous green to contrast with the raspberry rose buttercream. That second time round making the cake was for a particularly fantastic friend – Jazzy. Ever since grabbing her water bottle for her during a terrible migraine at our Fresh Start camp before freshman year of high school, she’s been one of my closest confidants and most-trusted friends.

And just a few months ago, she was evacuated due to COVID from Mozambique, where she had been serving in the Peace Corps for the past 18 months, and shipped back to Ashland, Oregon, where we now get to finally see each other after two years! Leaving newfound friends, neighbors, and her two adopted puppies in Mozambique was not a great experience, and it’s been a stressful time figuring out if she can bring her dogs over to the states, but I’m selfishly glad she’s here so that I can bug her all of the time with baked goods that, for 18 months, she had only seen photos of on the blog and Instagram. Can confirm: she’s thrilled to try as many baked goods as I throw at her. When she requested the pistachio raspberry rose cake, she didn’t quite know what she was getting into. She’s now the proud owner of the cake in the photos, and will be chipping away at it for days to come. If this seems a bit too much for a mid-week treat, try our slightly easier pistachio raspberry rose cupcakes or even our rose financiers, our pistachio raspberry rose Swiss roll (can you tell I like this combo) or these pistachio snow cookies!

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Gluten Free Pistachio Raspberry Rose Cake

An elegant layer cake layered with delicate pistachio cake, raspberry rose buttercream, and fresh raspberry whipped cream

Prep Time2 hours hrs

Cook Time35 minutes mins

Chilling time4 hours hrs

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Diet: Gluten Free

Keyword: buttercream, cake, elegant, gluten free, pistachio, raspberry, rose, rose raspberry, rose water, tiered cake

Servings: 16 people

Calories: 550kcal

Author: Amelia Farber

Equipment

• Three 9-inch round cake pans
• Electric stand or hand mixer
• Piping bag and tips
• Blender/Nutribullet/food processor

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 4 large eggs plus one egg yolk
• 1 Cup canola oil, plus 2 Tbsp
• 1 Cup sour cream, plus 2 Tbsp
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4-5 tsp rose water
• 1/2 Cup milk
• 1 1/2 Cup sugar
• 1 1/2 Cup gluten free 1-1 flour mix with xanthan gum in it (if your mix does not contain xanthan, add 1 tsp of xanthan gum now)
• 2 1/2 Cups finely ground unsalted, raw pistachios, plus 2 Tbsp instructions below
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt

For the buttercream:

• 4 Cups salted butter room temperature
• 5-6 Cups powdered sugar
• 111 grams sifted, powdered freeze dried raspberries (about 3 bags of freeze dried raspberries) instructions below
• 2-3 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2-3 tsp rose water to taste
• pinch salt

For the whipped cream and topping:

• 1 1/2 Cups heavy cream
• 2 Tbsp powdered sugar
• 1 Cup mashed fresh raspberries
• Additional fresh raspberries or flowers for decoration optional

Instructions

• First, preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit, and grease three 9-inch round cake pans with butter or cooking spray. Then, grind the pistachios. I blitz the raw, unsalted pistachios in a nutribullet or food processor until they're finely ground (an electric coffee grinder or a Vitamix also works – anything that gets a finely-ground flour out of the nuts). Blitz them up 1/2 cup at a time or they may turn into pistachio butter. Pack down the pistachio flour when you measure. Then, whisk the resulting pistachio flour with the gluten free 1-1 flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl, then set aside.
• Then, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, canola oil, vanilla, rose water, sour cream, milk, and sugar, until smooth. Dump in the dry ingredients and stir everything together until combined. Then pour the batter evenly into the three greased pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until tops spring back when touched and a skewer inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean. Let cakes cool completely before frosting. I recommend letting cakes cool, then turning cakes out, wrapping them in plastic wrap, returning them to the pans, and freezing them for 2 hours so that construction is easier.
• While cakes are cooling, make the buttercream, whipped cream, and mashed raspberries! Buttercream first. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together the room temp butter and add in 1 cup of the powdered sugar at a time. Then add in the rose water and lemon juice and beat until smooth. Then, blitz up the freeze dried raspberries in a food processor or nutribullet until they're a fine powder. Sift the powder (to remove seeds) into the frosting (I usually use three packages/bags of freeze dried raspberries). Beat in the powder and the salt until smooth, tasting as you add ingredients to get your desired tartness/sweetness combo. Add more powdered sugar if the frosting is too loose, and add more lemon juice to bring out more of the tartness of the raspberries.
• Next, make the whipped cream and mashed raspberries. Mash about a cup of raspberries in a small bowl with a fork or spoon until it looks like jam. Then, in a large bowl, beat the heavy cream using a whisk or an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add the powdered sugar and 1/3 cup of the mashed raspberries into the cream. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form. Save the remaining mashed raspberries to go on top of the cake.
• Then construct the cake! If you froze your cake layers, unwrap them now. Place one layer on a serving tray/plate/cake stand. Frost the top of this layer with a thin layer of buttercream, spreading evenly. Then scoop a couple of cups of buttercream into a piping bag and cut a 1/2 inch opening. Pipe a ring of buttercream on the edge of the layer and fill the space in the center with 1/2 of the whipped cream. Add the second cake layer on top, and repeat the filling steps. Finally, add the final layer and frost with buttercream. Crumb coat the entire cake with buttercream, then place in the fridge or freezer fr 20-30 minutes to firm up, then remove and apply the final coat of frosting. Spread the top of the cake with the remaining mashed raspberries, then scoop the remaining buttercream into a piping bag and decorate the cake how you like.
• The cake will keep for about a week in the fridge, or you can continue to freeze the finished cake for a few hours and remove from freezer a few hours before serving.

Tag @sisterssansgluten on Instagram if you snap a photo of your cake!

Food photography and styling by Amelia Farber