A new favourite ingredient

Pistachio cream, expensive but exquisite

My new favourite Pavlova topping: pistachio cream.

I’ve had a few busy weeks of late and have been negligent in my Substack posting duties, but I promise to catch up with some exciting posts over the next few weeks. I’m typing away right now on a flight to Venice, where I will be wining and dining myself silly over the next few days and will happily report on it all!

Before departing Montreal, I enjoyed a few fun baking projects, both of which involved pistachio as the key flavouring. I absolutely love pistachio and was one of those rare kids who ordered pistachio ice cream while my friends opted for cookies and cream or triple vanilla fudge (to be honest, I ate those too). But as a child, I recall my mom always ordering pistachio at the Laura Secord ice cream counter so, intrigued by the minty green colour, I eventually went the pistachio route myself.

Truth be told, the Laura Secord pistachio ice cream was really more almond than pistachio as it’s quite common in pastry circles (especially back then) to boost pistachio preparations with almond extract.

At pastry school we never made anything pistachio, but when I worked in the chocolate department of the Pâtisserie de Gascogne in 1990, we made a chocolate filled with pistachio marzipan, which was really just almond paste mixed with pistachio paste imported from Italy. Later in ice cream class, we did make pistachio ice cream using a pistachio paste from the Italian company, Fabri. This is a very posh and expensive paste favoured by professionals to make everything from candies to gelato. In fact a lot of that mounded gelato you see in gelaterias is made with mixes for the base and flavourings from companies like Fabri.

The world of nut pastes starts with plain ol’ peanut butter and then extends to almond praline, hazelnut praline, almond and hazelnut praline, and finally, pistachio paste. But you could really make all sorts of nut pastes, pralines and creams by grinding any nuts to a smooth paste and incorporating sugar or not, or caramelizing the nuts first before grinding. Add chocolate in there and you’re looking at a spread, such as Nutella.

Like chocolate, nut pastes have a dry matter content of 100%, which means when you stir liquid into them they will seize up. A pure nut paste is a bit tricky to work with, so for consumers, many are turned into creams, which you can even make yourself.

Pistachio cream is indeed sweetened. You will find some made with pulverized pistachios, milk, butter, sugar, and sometimes white chocolate. The simpler ones are made with vegetable oil, pistachios, sugar and skim milk powder. It’s worth taking a minute to scan the ingredient list and try to find the brands that use olive oil over palm oil. Generally, the best brands hail from Italy.

I recently found this brand from Scyavuru, which is delicate in flavour and has a nice velvety texture. It's made with 25% Sicilian pistachios and is available in Montreal at Gourmet Laurier and Toronto at Eataly. Expect to pay about $15 for a jar of 200g.

Yes kids, pistachio anything is expensive.

Now how do you use this luscious cream? Well, I would use it to layer thin butter cookies together, or stir it into yogurt or buttercream. I love it in desserts and have two recipes for you here, a pistachio tiramisu and a mascarpone-enhanced whipped cream that works beautifully as a Pavlova topping, a fruit tart filling or even a cream puff filling. I was told by a salesgirl at the store where I bought it that she loves pistachio cream spread on toasted bread, which she then tops with goat’s cheese. Yum!

The reason it works as well in sweet as savoury preparations is that it’s not too sweet. And though the pistachio taste is quite subtle, you can boost the flavour by finishing off you preparation with some chopped, toasted pistachios, or you can follow the Laura Secord lead and add a few drops of almond extract.

You might even want to add a drop or two of green food colouring. Real pistachio paste has a sort of khaki green colour, which doesn’t always make for the most appetizing of tones. But avoid too much food colouring or your dessert will take on a frightening neon hue.

I recall making a dessert for the French TV show Parler pour parler in the 90’s consisting of a chocolate terrine served with a pistachio crème anglaise (soooo delicious!). That night I watched the show and when dessert arrived, I was shocked to see a shamrock green sauce on the plates. And so were the guests! The host of the show, the famous Quebec journalist, writer and actress Janette Bertrand stopped talking, looked down at the plate and said, “Elle est pas mal verte cette sauce!” (this sauce is pretty green!).

I was mortified, but I learned my, lesson. When it comes to food colouring, as the Eagles sang so well… take it easy.

See below for Pistachio Mascarpone Cream and Pistachio Tiramisu recipes!

Pistachio-Mascarpone Cream

Makes about 2 cups

I love this cream mounded atop a Pavlova with strawberries, spread between the layers of a simple cake, or just dolloped in a coupe and scattered with fresh berries.