Lemon Butter Cake With Chia Seeds & Pistachio Nuts

This Lunar New Year, I have come up with 2 similar cakes using orange and lemon rinds plus Chia Seeds to enhance the taste of the cakes. And for festive flavour, I also used dried longan (龙眼) which represent "many good son" and pistachio nuts (开心果) which is often given as a gift to symbolize health, happiness and good fortune. 

LEMON BUTTER CAKE WITH
CHIA SEEDS AND PISTACHIO NUTS

The added of pistachio nuts to this cake gives it a savory and nutty taste which blends well with the citrus syrup that moist and enhance the flavour of the cake. And for extra crunch and decorative purpose, you could also scatter a some crashed pistachio nuts on top of the batter before baking.

(Make: 10 Square Cupckes | Preparation: 10 minutes | Cooking: 25 minutes)

Ingredients:
250g Unsalted Butter, soften
180g Castor Sugar
Rinds Of 1 Lemon and 1 Orange
4 Eggs (60g each)
280g Cake Flour
2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
50ml Fresh Milk
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons Chia Seeds
100g Pistachio Nuts, roughly chopped

Citrus Syrup 
100g Castor Sugar
Juice of 2 Lemon
Rind of 1 Lemon and 1 Orange

Method:-
1. Using an electric beater, cream butter and sugar till pale and creamy.

2. Beat in egg one at a time till combined. Add in lemon and orange zest together with vanilla extract, beat well.

3. Next fold in sieved flour mixture (cake flour plus baking powder) in 3 batches alternate it with fresh milk.

4. Lastly, stir in chia seeds and pistachio nuts (reserved 1/4 as toppings) till well mixed.

5. Pour mixture into prepared cupcake case or baking tin (2 loaf tin measuring 17cm x 8cm x 6cm), bake in preheat 180°C degree Celsius oven for about 50 minutes (loaf tin) and 25 minutes cupcake cases or when a skewer insert and come out clean.

6. To Make The Citrus Syrup: Place all the ingredients in a heavy duty pan and simmer till sugar dissolved. Turn off the heat and set aside.

7. When the cake is out of the oven, using a toothpick or skewer poke a few holes before drizzling citrus syrup on the cake to enable the cake to absorb the flavour.

Tip:

~ If you do not have cake flour on hand, you could replace it with all-purpose plain flour (with 280g all-purpose flour, removed 4 level tablespoons from it and replace it with 4 level tablespoons of cornstarch. Sieved the flour mixture at least 5 times to aerate the flours before using it).