Italian orange cake

I was recently given a huge haul of citrus from a friend's farm so have been on a mission to make things with oranges, grapefruit, limes, mandarins and lemonades. This weekend I used one perfect orange to make a cake that used the fruit whole, but rather than boiling it first for two hours as with Middle-eastern orange cake, you simply blend it up fresh and integrate it into a simple batter - a little like the famous Sunset cake but with canola oil rather than butter as a base. I like oil-based cakes a lot as they're great as a make-ahead option. In terms of technique, this recipe also appealed as it was just a matter of combining wet and dry ingredients. Almost as soon as I'd started, the cake was in the oven. But my luck didn't last. Shortly after the above photo was taken, my magnificent cake sunk spectacularly as I'd pulled it out too early and the centre was entirely uncooked. Skewer tests are not failsafe as I've learned (the hard way) and next time I will definitely be using the internal-read thermometer I'd bought for this exact purpose (the internal temperature of cakes when fully baked is around 98 deg C / 210 deg F) and forgotten about. Happily, because my orange cake needed to be cut into pieces anyway as it was to be taken on a bush walk, it definitely didn't get wasted and the fully-baked bits around the edges were enjoyed up the top of the escarpment down the south coast on Sunday. They were delicious, a beautiful sweet-bitter burst of citrus in cake form on a sunny day.

Italian orange cake
Adapted from a recipe by This Italian Kitchen

I used a food processor as I don't have a blender so there were little chunks of orange studded through the crumb of the cake. I thought this rather added to its appeal, but if you like things more refined - and you own one - you may like to use a blender.

1 large thin-skinned orange
1 1/4 cups sugar (275g)

2/3 cup canola oil (140g)

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups flour (300g)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt (use half this amount if table salt)

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Position a rack in the centre of oven and grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

Cut orange into chunks (removing any seeds you come across) and combine in blender with sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Process til smooth and fruit is completely puréed. Transfer mixture into a large bowl and fold in dry ingredients. 

Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until an internal read thermometer registers 98 deg C / 210 deg F. If you don't have a thermometer to gauge done-ness, use your finger to gently prod the middle of cake - if it still feels a bit wobbly, leave it in a bit longer. Use your instincts as to when it is done. The good news is that the cake is so moist from the oil and the whole orange, it's unlikely you'll ever over-bake.

Let cake sit in tin on wire rack for ten minutes, then turn out onto rack to cool completely.

Saffron, orange and yoghurt cake

I got some saffron for Christmas. I love grocery items as gifts - the sort of things that are useful but a little luxurious, that you might not include in your regular weekly shop. Saffron, which costs a lot for a little, falls squarely into this category. So when a friend had a birthday recently, I was ready with a cake. Saffron is a subtle flavour so know this recipe will still work really well without it. But what it does offer is an enhancement of colour - a warm glow that suffuses the cake. Its fine filaments are flecked through it too, little quivers of colour. Without saffron, what you get is a great everyday orange cake, easily made with ingredients you're likely to already have on hand. But saffron makes it just a little bit special, which is what birthdays - and Christmases - are all about after all. 

Double citrus syrup cake

 

I've got a real affection for cakes flavoured with citrus. The acidity of the fruit spectacularly offsets the sweetness of sugar. The flavour feels bright and fresh in the colder months when it's in season. But perhaps it's just because the colours put me in mind of nasturtiums, a flower I love, that grows wild in Brisbane backyards. And some more southern ones too. I'm lucky enough to have them permanently on display thanks to this beautiful linocut by my dad, which has pride of place in my living room. 

But this cake! The recipe is by Julia Busuttil-Nishimura, who's responsible for some of my favourite bakes of recent years - this raspberry coconut and lime cake, this ginger cake with brown sugar cream cheese frosting... It uses both lemon and orange and best of all, can be made in advance, as it has yoghurt in its list of ingredients, and is drenched after baking in a syrup, both of which keep it beautifully moist. I made a 2/3rds quantity here and used a small loaf tin, but the the three egg version (the original recipe, as below) would be lovely in the round. It looks good just as is but if you've got any nasturtiums about, they do make a very pretty (and edible) topping. It's also excellent with berries and cream.

Beatrix hot cross buns

Honestly, I thought I might be done with this blog. But then all of a sudden, the world turned upside down and all I can do to stay calm is cook. On Saturday I made hot cross buns. I left some outside the apartment of my 85 year old neighbour, tossed a ziplock bag containing four to a friend across our authorised divide of 1.5m on an exercise walk, and continued on to deposit another care package on the doorstep of someone dear to me who's self-isolating  on the other side of the park. I can't do much in the face of a global pandemic, but I can do that. 

I firmly believe there's no such thing as a bad hot cross bun. Squidgy or fluffy, sparsely fruited or dense with sultanas, I don't care, I like them all*. There may be, however, a superlative sort of hot cross bun and this is it. I'll say upfront I'm very partial to anything orange-flavoured - in colour and taste it's just so bright and friendly. These buns have not just a sweet citrussy glaze on top, but are made with a dough containing one whole puréed orange. The recipe comes from my favourite bakery, Beatrix, in Melbourne. As luck would have it, they just published a cookbook and it arrived in my letterbox as a gift on my birthday two weeks ago, back when everything was still sort of normal. I'm always nervous about anything involving yeast, but this worked out beautifully. Right now there's something soothing about a baking project that takes time: waiting for the first prove, and the second, then the immediate gratification of the buns freshly out of the oven. And the great pleasure that comes from sharing them, even when you can't do it in person.


If you're lucky enough to live in Melbourne, Beatrix is currently doing takeaway cake (as well as delicious sandwiches) so you might like to support them by ordering online and picking up, or popping in to see what's available. Check their Instagram for their latest offerings. 

* Actually, not true! I have no time for chocolate chips in hot cross buns. I know the sultana-averse are fond of them but I guess I'm a purist.

Spelt orange cake

I've had my head down with a deadline and haven't been baking, but last Thursday I felt an irresistible pull towards my KitchenAid mixer. For my birthday recently, some good friends gifted me not one, not two, but three Scandinavian cookbooks. In the interests of hygge, it seemed necessary to step away from the laptop and make a cake. I couldn't take too much time off so this recipe jumped out immediately as both simple and comforting.

I have a soft spot for orange cakes. This one adds a wholesome element by cutting the pale sweetness of the citrus with the grainy goodness of spelt flour. All the things you love about orange cake. And more. Highly recommended for anyone with a baking itch that needs to be scratched - hygge in a hurry.

Almond cake

When I moved to Sydney and, ultimately, out of home, my farewell present from my friends was a food processor. The same one is still going strong today, pulverising and puréeing like the day I got it, about eighteen years ago now. I used it last week to make an almond cake for a friend who's dairy-free. A little like a Middle-Eastern orange cake in that its keystone ingredients are whole, boiled citrus (in this case, lemon as well as orange) and almonds - both of which necessitate sharp blades to blitz and blend - it also incorporates olive oil and a small amount of flour, for leavening. Something a bit different for a kitchen work horse that I'm grateful remains exactly the same. 

Chocolate orange date truffles

Food presents are my favourite. Among the best I've received in recent years: vanilla beans from Bali, a catering-size container of corn relish from Tasmania, biscotti baked in one hemisphere and mailed to another, home-roasted coffee beans, a dozen hot cross buns from my favourite Hobart bakery, a tin of homemade biscuits to last through Christmas and beyond, my mother's green pawpaw chutney (which I'm lucky enough to have a lifetime supply of thanks to her obsessive need to bottle everything she ever grew), and last week, a huge haul of premium grade cocoa from my American cousin Amy, transported across the Pacific Ocean and lugged halfway around Australia by her parents, who've been out here visiting. To thank them for being such good-natured cocoa-mules, I wanted to make them something with it to say thank you. I wanted to make something the gluten-free giver of the gift could eat, even if she wouldn't get to taste this particular batch (her folks are heading home on a three week cruise). Something to showcase the cocoa, in all its dark, bitter beauty. Happily I had just the recipe. It required only a handful of ingredients, all easily available: dates, orange, walnuts and cocoa. Blended together, rolled in extra cocoa to make an elegant truffle that just so happens to be gluten-free and dairy-free too. There's no refined sugar but the natural sweetness of the date and the orange in combination with the richness of the nuts and the cocoa create a taste not unlike the very best dark chocolate... which if you've recently OD'd on supermarket-grade milk chocolate Easter eggs, you will appreciate all the more. Just like a thoughtful gift*. 


* special shout out to my friend George too, for the beautiful plate these truffles sit on, which may not be edible but makes anything that goes near it infinitely more so.

Mum's orange cake

A few weeks ago, my mum died. There's so much to say but I just don't have the words right now so I'll stick to talking about cakes, which seems appropriate here in this space - specifically this cake, which is the first one my mother taught me to make. It's the one that was routinely requested for birthdays in my family, the one most often packed in school lunchboxes. In a time before food processors, she showed me how to cream butter and sugar with the natural warmth of my hand. She taught me how to separate eggs, how to beat yolks in, one at a time so as not to curdle the mixture. How to gently fold in flour, to beat egg whites into stiff peaks and use them to aerate a batter. From her I learned how to grease a tin, to butter comprehensively and dust with flour. She taught me to use a skewer to test whether a cake was ready to come out of the oven, to trust my nose to know when to check. In many ways, I'm a naturally anxious person - I routinely fret about things that need not be fretted about - but the one part of my life that I'm truly confident - where I do not fret - is in baking. And that's because of her. 

This recipe is one I photocopied and packed when I moved out of home. Mum must have ripped it out of a magazine at my grandparents' place I imagine (it was never her style to buy something so frivolous but she couldn't resist reading one if it was lying around, especially the recipe section). From the date at the bottom of the page I know it's from two months after I was born, so effectively, she's been making it all my life. There are several recipes on the page but Mum has annotated this one with an asterisk and in her amazingly consistent handwriting, which now brings me to tears, she declares it excellent. And so do I.

Date and orange spice loaf

There's something incredibly comforting about a loaf cake you slice and slather with butter. Perhaps because they remind me of my childhood. Of picnics with my grandparents. Of thermoses of tea and dinted metal cake tins. Of long socks and Lion's Parks on road trips. This weekend, with the weather rainy and cold, I wanted one. 

This is an incredibly economical recipe, using just one egg, and a relatively modest amount of butter and sugar. All the flavour comes from the dates, their deep caramel sweetness cut with the freshness of orange zest and crunch of pecans. The spices mellow everything out, as does the wholemeal flour, which I threw in in place of half the amount of plain, which seemed right, and it was. This cake keeps amazingly well, and days later, tasted just as good as when it was fresh out of the oven. I could have kept eating and eating it but, showing remarkable restraint, stashed half in the freezer for another rainy day.

Pistachio and orange blossom cake

When I was growing up, there were two birthday cakes in heavy rotation in the family repertoire. Devil's Food was one and orange the other. As a child, I was pre-programmed to love anything chocolate, but orange had the edge in one important way: its colour just made you happy - just the sort of thing to brighten your lunchbox the day after your birthday when the candles had been blown out and all the presents unwrapped. Now I'm an adult, but orange cake for birthdays never gets old. And so I made one for a friend on the weekend.

  
This a celebration cake that's both simple and luxurious. Two different types of nuts (almonds and pistachios) enrich a sweet, buttery base whose texture contrasts beautifully with a smooth mascapone frosting streaked with zest and fragrant with orange blossom. Because birthdays should be bright. Orange, always.

Orange blossom cake

Quite a while ago now - I can't remember when - I bought a bottle of orange blossom water. After using it for whatever it was I purchased it for, it languished in the back of my cupboard (like the pomegranate molasses that suffered a similar fate before I discovered this cake) until the revelation of this recipe. Scanning the list of ingredients, it seemed like a cross between a Middle Eastern orange cake (without the advance prep of boiling oranges) and a Sardinian ricotta cake (without the flour). I was intrigued, and not least by the name, which put orange blossom water front and centre rather than its usual place - one of the cast of thousands in the myriad tastes of a tagine, or overshadowed by the intense caramel of dates in dessert.

Though you only use a very small amount, all the other elements of the cake - the creamy ricotta, the chewy almond meal, the orange zest, all work to showcase the delicate floral perfume of this colourless liquid, resulting in a sweet that's both subtle and substantial. Dinner party dessert-worthy, as well as lunchbox-hardy. Prettily pale, yet bright with flavour. Oh, and it's gluten-free too, did I mention that? With everyday ingredients. Apart from the orange blossom water that is. But given how seriously good this cake is, it's on its way to everyday.

Lamingtons

International travel is a funny thing. One day you're standing on a Californian cliff overlooking the Pacific, staring out at migrating grey whales, and the next you're on the other side of that same ocean, having migrated yourself on the Airbus A380. In a matter of hours. Well, thirteen or so. Give or take. But still, you get my point. It's disorienting. So I cooked. In my own kitchen. To help me get my bearings. It was Australia Day, so I made lamingtons. For those of you back on the other side the world, lamingtons are a particularly Australian childhood treat: squares of soft sponge, dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut. You can find them at any country town bakery, right next to the vanilla slices, apple turnovers and Neenish tarts.

The cake is usually stale, the chocolate coating thin and teeth-jarringly sweet and more of the coconut - in its desiccated form - ends up on your clothes than in your mouth. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean they're a disappointment. In my book, there's no such thing as a bad lamington but this version kicks things up a notch, quality-wise. The sponge is light and fresh, the chocolate rich, thick and infused with orange, and the shredded coconut clinging to the outside is as shaggy and strange and spectacular as the Joshua trees I left behind in the American desert. It's a small world after all.

Spiced coffee, date and pomegranate loaf

A while ago, I bought some pomegranate molasses. It was so long ago I'm now no longer able to remember what I bought it for but it had been languishing lonely in my cupboard for some time, so when I happened across this Karen Martini recipe in the Sydney Morning Herald, I knew I had to make it. But not just because of the pomegranate molasses. The list of ingredients sounded intoxicating - orange, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coffee, sesame seeds, dates... all the flavours of the Middle-East combined in a cake. 

Dark, dense and deliciously sticky, this is a Middle-Eastern take on the traditional date loaf (if you want a recipe for that, go no further than Elizabeth's). The pomegranate molasses shellacked glossily on top gives a tart kick that balances the sweetness of the cake, blends beautifully with the spices, nuts and fruit within, and adds a touch of glamour and mystery to what would otherwise be a pretty plain looking loaf. If you don't have any pomegranate molasses in your cupboard, head to your nearest Middle-Eastern food store and pick up a bottle. Or two. Once this is in your repertoire, you'll need them.  

Chocolate orange cake

Last week it was my friend Joanna's birthday. So I made her a cake. When I'm cooking for Joanna, the stakes are high. She's an excellent cook...  and an adventurous one. She has a piping bag and a blow torch - for brûlée not welding - and the ability and patience (and need with two small daughters) to make cakes in the shape of barnyard animals and geometrically difficult numerals involving multiple tins and creative assembly. I can't compete with that. So I went the other way, with my limited craft skills and a fail-safe recipe.

This cake - a variation on the Middle-Eastern orange cake - couldn't be more simple... or delicious. Here, cocoa is added to the traditional mix of boiled orange, eggs, sugar and almond meal, resulting in a stunningly light chocolate cake - nutty, citrussy and incredibly moreish. It's brilliant as a light dessert at a dinner party (when you've probably already overfed your guests), as something decadent for those who don't eat gluten or dairy, a treat to take camping (it's so moist it keeps for days), or with a cup of tea on a sunny Saturday morning to celebrate a birthday of a friend... who liked it so much she asked for the recipe. Here it is!

Orange loaf

So I had some sour cream to use up. A lot of the cooking I do starts this way. As an effort not to waste things. I can't remember now why I had sour cream in the fridge, but I couldn't let half a carton sit and spoil, no matter that it did cost all of $1.25 or thereabouts. I once made batch after batch of chutney just to empty a glass vinegar bottle, which - with its pretty embossed leaf pattern - I had designs on repurposing as a water jug. A good friend pointed out, quite sensibly, that I could have bought the bottle and just tipped its contents down the sink - but I just can't bring myself to waste anything. Besides, it's a good excuse to cook. So. The sour cream. I could have made cornbread. I could have baked a potato. But with all this glorious sunshine Sydney's been enjoying of late, I had organised a weekend picnic, so it seemed a cake was called for. This one I'd bookmarked from a blog a while ago, being a fan of all things orange, in colour and in cooking.

This recipe uses both the zest and juice of the fruit for a full-bodied citrus flavour. The sweetness of the orange is tempered nicely by the tang of the sour cream, which also gives the cake a stunningly smooth texture. It's light yet robust, and in its loaf form, eminently transportable - the perfect picnic cake. I'll be making it again (and again, no doubt as then I'll have the other half of the sour cream carton to use up). 

Florida orange pie

I love old postcards. And I love pie. Somebody who knows these two things about me recently sent me this: 

 

The oranges against the orange background are amazing, as are the scalloped edges, on the postcard and the pie.  Even better, the recipe was on the back.  I knew instantly I had to make it. Though pie by name, this is essentially a cheesecake, an old-school one at that - moreish biscuit base, fluffy cream cheese filling and "baked" in the refrigerator, rather than the oven.  It's the kind of dessert you'd find in the slowly rotating glass display case of a diner (another thing I love).  You might not notice it at first, in amongst all the towering meringues, and lattice crusts, and struesel toppings barely containing their berries below, but your eye would be drawn to it eventually, its orange tint enticing.  If you ordered it, you'd be rewarded: light, smooth and bursting with the bright tang of citrus, this is a pie worth posting - both with a stamp, and on a blog.

Middle Eastern orange cake

If you’re in your thirties, live in Australia and like to cook, odds are that prominent in your kitchen is a fat orange tome.  Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion is the cookbook of my generation.  Arranged by ingredient, it goes from A-Z with more recipes and cooking advice than you can possibly imagine.  Got a surfeit of asparagus and no idea what to do with it?  Ask Stephanie.  Want instructions for how to roast lamb?  Look under L.  Wondering what dill goes with?  You know the answer.  I’ve made many things from it over the years, but none more than this cake.  Maybe because in colour it matches the book.  Or maybe because it’s so effortless (apart from the boiling of the oranges, which you can do ahead of time, it's merely a matter of combining a small number of ingredients).  Maybe it’s because it’s made with almond meal, and therefore able to be served to my growing number of gluten-free friends and family.  Maybe just because it’s so good.   

So from an Australian classic, a Middle Eastern recipe that made two Americans very happy when I made it as their wedding cake last year.  Amy and Ewan, this one’s for you.

Pear, pistachio and chocolate cake

This cake will change your life.  This is no small claim I know, but it’s true.  This cake is so good it’s starred at a wedding reception, been immortalised in a script (not written by me) and its recipe used as leverage to extract fundraising dollars at a preschool.  Unlike other loaf cakes, it’s far from homely, its cross-section studded with pistachios, chunks of pear and chocolate and flecks of orange zest.  If you’re a person who isn’t a confident baker, or even a baker at all, then this is the cake for you.  It takes one bowl, five minutes to prepare and about an hour later, you will be swimming in compliments.  Guaranteed.  

French toast

 
I never got French toast.  The appeal of soggy, milky, eggy fried bread was lost on me.  Everything changed when I was introduced to this distant cousin of the original by my own distant cousin on my first trip to the United States. The difference here was that the bread was soaked not in milk, but orange juice (though an egg was still involved). It was not fried, but baked. And even better than that, the underside crisped and caramelised as it cooked, with no supervision required. I've made this French toast for years now and it has many converts, including my parents, who have been known to break with their routine porridge/muesli breakfast for it on my visits home. It's a great way to use use odd ends of stale bread, or oranges after you've used the zest for something else. I like to serve it with a dollop of yoghurt to undercut the sweetness, some raspberries and pistachios for texture (other combinations of fruit and nuts would work just as well I'll bet), and maple syrup for tradition. Any old ovenproof dish will do to bake it in but in my experience it tastes best (like most things) cooked in a cast iron frypan.

I first posted this recipe in September last year but somehow - in one of the great mysteries of the internet - it got knocked back into the draft section of my blog. So I'm reposting it, with better photos taken from this weekend, when I had the honour of making it for its creator - the one and only Ann Darling - who is visiting Australia and staying with me at the moment.