When strawberries smell good they are at optimum ripeness and perfect flavour. My favourite variety is Sweet Eve. A new trend is to use unripe strawberries to pickle; they make excellent garnishes for salads, soups or stews.

Yoghurt keeps this cake moist, and the pistachio nuts add crunch and beautiful colour.

Serves: 10 approximately
Preparation: 25 minutes
Cooking: 50 minutes

Ingredients

● 200g pistachio nuts, shelled
● 250g golden caster sugar
● 200g unsalted butter
● 3 eggs
● 150g full-fat Greek yoghurt
● 275g self-raising flour

For the strawberry icing
● 200g butter
● 300g icing sugar
● 4 strawberries

Garnish
● 300g small, carefully hulled strawberries

Method

● Line and grease a square 20cm x 20cm tin with baking parchment paper.

● Preheat the oven to 160°C fan.

● Put 150g pistachio nuts into a food processor with half the sugar (125g) and whizz until finely chopped.

● Tip into a large bowl, add the remaining sugar, and beat in butter until creamy.

● Add eggs, yoghurt and flour and whisk until smooth.

● Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

● Cool for 15 minutes before turning out and removing the baking parchment paper.

● To make the icing, beat the butter until white and fluffy.

● Add the icing sugar a little at a time, then when the mix feels stiff, beat in the 4 strawberries until well combined.

● Beat in the remaining sugar.

● Cover the top and sides of the cake with the icing.

● Whizz the remaining pistachio nuts until finely chopped and then press them against the edge of the cake.

● Just before serving, slice the remaining strawberries. Lay them neatly in rows on the top of the cake and scatter with a few chopped pistachios.

Strawberry yoghurt cake