Eggless Mango Saffron Pistachio Tart Cake … as delicious as it is pretty!
Eggless Mango Saffron Pistachio Tart Cake… Mangoes, saffron and pistachios come together to create magic, a cake worth every crumb! Hello mango season, I think this is my favourite season just because we are blessed by the best mangoes there ever were!
M is for May, M is for mangoes, or rather an abundance of mangoes. It’s probably the only way to survive the unforgiving, harsh Indian summer where the plains of North India sizzle at 45C-50C. We are quite happy to drown under a deluge of the king of fruits, the luscious mango that makes summer bearable, beautiful too!
If you stop by my feed on Instagram, you might instantly pick out my love for desserts in seasonal flavours, a touch of saffron, a sprinkling of pistachios, that finish with edible flowers or rose petals. For me, it’s always been the visuals and the taste, both equally important, both come together to tell the story like the screenshot below!
These days I’m smitten with mangoes as you might have already guessed. I love the pop of colour they add, I love how beautifully they can lift up a dessert, how well they compliment gentle flavours like rose, saffron, pistachio and how incredibly delicious they are! It’s a fruit we absolutely love to love on the subcontinent, and I believe it brings out the best of our creativity.
This Eggless Mango Saffron Pistachio Tart Cake brings together one of my favourite flavour combinations for summer, a celebration of all things Indian! You can find a load of these flavours in Indian desserts or mithai, and they always remind you of how beautifully the ingredients pair together.
Quintessentially Indian, our cuisine is a riot of colours with flavours like these, an inspiration to create pleasing desserts! I really enjoy doing just that …
The Eggless Mango Saffron Pistachio Tart Cake Recipe is an eggless cake baked in a special tart tin with an indent, a cake that turned out as delicious as it was pretty. The recipe is a simple one bowl part wholegrain eggless pistachio saffron sponge baked up beautifully in this favourite flan tin.
I doused the cake generously with a deep infused saffron milk, filled the indent of the flan tin {shared below} with the best mangoes of the season, then smothered them with a cream filling. Every slice of the cake is delightful and screams mango season. If you’re looking for the special mango cake this season, honestly this is it!
Do tag me on Instagram at Passionate About Baking if you make this, or any other recipe from the blog. I’d love to see it!
Eggless Mango Saffron Pistachio Tart Cake
Equipment
- 1 Flan tin
Ingredients
Eggless saffron pistachio tart cake
- 210 g buttermilk
- 35 g oil
- 15 g clarified butter/ghee
- Generous pinch saffron
- 2 tbsp finely chopped pistachios
- 100 g castor sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- Pinch salt
- 50 g wholewheat flour/aata
- 115 g plain flour/maida
Saffron milk
- Generous pinch of saffron + 100ml milk + 1 tsp sugar steeped overnight
Cream filling
- 100 g cream 25% fat
- 1 tsp agar agar
- 50 g white couverture chocolate chopped
- 100 g cream cheese softened
Fruit filling to fill indent
- 100 g freshly diced mango
To finish
- chopped pistachios, diced mango, rose petals, mint etc
Instructions
Eggless saffron pistachio tart cake
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease an 8" loose bottom flan tin.
- In a large bowl, add all the ingredients and give them a good whisk with a balloon whisk/electric whisk.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin, and tap on the counter to level.
- Bake for 30 minutes, until the tester comes out clean.
- Cool completely, then demold the cake gently and place it upside-down on the serving platter.
Cream filling
- Place the cream, sugar and agar agar in a saucepan and whisk until smooth. Simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes stirring often to activate the agar agar.
- Pour this over the white chocolate and leave to stand until the chocolate melts. Whisk until smooth. Stand over warm water if required.
- Whisk in the cream cheese just before you need to pour it in. Taste and adjust sweetness as desired.
Topping
- Dice the mangoes and fill the indent with them then top the cake with them.
Assemble (see video}
- Moisten the cake with the steeped saffron milk.
- Fill the cavity with diced mangoes, then pour the cream filling over.
- Place the cake in the fridge to set overnight.
- Garnish with finely chopped pistachios, diced mangoes, fresh rose petals, mint etc
Deeba @ PAB
About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.
2 Comments
Pallavi
Just looking at this picture has me drooling.
At this point, I’m willing to give the Atulfo mango a try, it is vastly inferior to the Alphonso, but as choice is limited… something so better than nothing!
I have a question, when you say buttermilk, it is milk + vinegar, right?
Deeba @ PAB
Thank you so much Pallavi. That’s so sweet! I don’t always use Alphonso mangoes. Kesar, Sinduri, Hamam are also good enough as a choice and I know Atulfo will work well.
Re buttermilk. Buttermilk is plain chaach/ Amul buttermilk. Alternatively, you can add 1 tsp vinegar/lime to 1 cup of milk. Let it stand for 5 minutes to curdle, then measure and use. Hope this helps.