White Chocolate and Pistachio Cake

This is the kind of cake you would imagine sitting in an old-fashioned tea-shop, waiting to be cut up into generous slabs and served with a pot of tea. The original recipe I used called it a pound cake, although the four main ingredients - butter, sugar, flour and eggs - aren't in the right proportions for it to be a proper pound cake, it's still quite a substantial cake. The texture is rich and buttery, with hints of vanilla and white chocolate - it's not heavy, but it isn't light either!

The icing on this cake is quite unusual - at least I've never come across it before. It has no icing sugar, and the only sweetness is from the melted white chocolate which is folded into cream cheese and yogurt. It's the perfect icing for people who find normal butter cream too sickly sweet.

White Chocolate and Pistachio Cake

250g pack butter , softened
200g caster sugar
300g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
200g full-fat Greek yogurt
50g grated white chocolate

For the icing
150g White chocolate
200g tub full-fat soft cheese
200g Greek yogurt
100g finely chopped pistachios

Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Butter and line the base and sides of a deep 22cm cake tin with baking parchment, then beat the rest of the butter and the sugar together until pale. 
Add the flour, baking powder, vanilla, eggs, yogurt and grated chocolate. Beat together until the batter is smooth. Scrape into the tin and bake for 1 hr, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, then remove from the heat. Beat the soft cheese in a mixing bowl until smooth, then beat in the yogurt until smooth. Scrape in the melted chocolate and beat again. Chill until ready to use.

Swirl the icing over the top of the cake and scatter over the pistachios.