Bittersweet! - Last cake of the year

Hello everybody! It's once again time to share the "Cake of the Month". In The Cake Slice Bakers we are closing our baking year. During 2012-2013 we baked from Vintage Cakes Book by Julie Richardson and it was just a total and absolute delight. The recipes we tried were amazing and we all truly recommend this book! It is definitely a MUST HAVE.

 Because it is our last cake from the book and our last official month of our baking year we each had the opportunity and freedom to pick any cake from the book! I almost immediately knew which cake I would bake and when I asked hubby to pick a cake for me to bake I was delighted to see he picked the one I wanted to bake!

Here it is:

Watergate Cake with Impeachment Frosting
According to the author of the book this cake is from the early 70's and it is a pistachio cake with pistachio frosting.

Cake batter mixed with pistachio pudding, yes, all from scratch

I loved the beautiful golden color of the cake layers, the luscious cream was infused with pistachio pudding as well.

Caramelized pistachios for garnish

Because this cake had to stay refrigerated I couldn't garnish it to make it look prettier otherwise the caramelized pistachios would've gotten soggy and just not good to enjoy. 

Sliced and garnished!

Each slice could be garnished with the caramelized pistachios although I gave my guests the option to have them on the side instead since hubby didn't like the pistachios on the cake. My friends said they loved the caramelized pistachios AND the cake (I loved this cake!!!) but most of them preferred them separately... I am glad I offered the caramelized pistachios as an option. This cake was super moist and flavorful and the pistachio just adds a subtle flavor that is not overpowering or overwhelming, just really delicious, buttery, nutty, PERFECT!

Every ending is bittersweet... There's the sadness to end a chapter and the excitement to start another one! I can't wait to start baking from our new book! (sorry I still can't reveal the name!). I have been honored to be leading such a wonderful group of ladies at The Cake Slice (Like Us on Faceboook) and I hope we'll continue to bake for many more years together! If you'd like to join our secret group (we never reveal what we're baking until the 20th of every month) let me know... I'll be happy to share with you how you can join us (it's very simple! The main requirements are: love baking, have a blog and want to eat cake).

So... now... let me invite you to some other blogs. My friends and fellow bakers baked great and beautiful cakes too... make sure you do some blog hopping to see what they picked!

© Paloma K.