There are certain cooks whose recipes you trust unreservedly. Yotam Ottolenghi is one. Though he's famous for elevating the vegetable to the main course at dinner parties, it's the sweet chapters in his books I'm most drawn to. Perhaps because they have fewer ingredients than the others, or maybe because of my memories of visiting his delis in London, where you're greeted with Alice in Wonderland-style displays of dessert: little lime polenta cakes, massive meringues, spice-infused cookies... It's a cacophony of colour and flavours and as such the antithesis of the traditional English afternoon tea. No wonder his new cookbook focuses solely on sweet. Til it's released in September, I'll make do with the slim non-savoury sections in his other books. From Jerusalem comes this cake - ideal for making ahead (always a bonus) as it keeps well, and tastes even better the next day. It's a good one to have in your repertoire if you're catering for anyone with an intolerance for dairy - just leave off the Greek yoghurt when serving. And in loaf form it makes for the
best sort of carry-on cake - whether you're boarding a flight or
transporting it to the park for a picnic.
Winter is coming. And with it, citrus. On a sunny Saturday over Easter, I made this orange polenta cake and shared it the following day with family friends in Wendy Whiteley's Secret Garden, a special Sydney spot over by Lavender Bay. It was perfect for picnicking - sturdy and transportable - extra lovely to eat outside, especially in such surrounds as it's laced with the delicate perfume of orange blossom.
If you like to bake, birthday cake is the best. There is nothing nicer than making one for someone you love, unless that person is under ten and the cake in question has to resemble a Disney character or something similarly complex requiring graph paper, a work plan and multiple tins. I'm in awe of my friends with kids who routinely turn out these marvels. This cake was not for a kid but for a very good friend with a big double digit birthday, but there's no need for birthday cake to be grown up. All that matters is that it's sturdy (to hold up all those candles), sweet, and good enough to go back for seconds...
This one succeeds on all scores. As I gave as a birthday present, Hetty McKinnon's first cookbook Community, it was fitting that this recipe comes from her second, Neighbourhood. It's full of all sorts of good things (pistachios! orange blossom water! cardamom! yoghurt! cream cheese!) and presents the prettiest palette of pale orange, pink and green. I'm predisposed to orange as a cake flavour for birthdays - it's not just sweet but somehow joyful in its brightness, both in flavour and hue.
Though
fittingly celebratory, this is actually quite a modest cake, requiring
only two eggs, a small (but sufficient) amount of icing and seriously,
no technique at all - the butter is melted, so it's just a matter of
combining the wet ingredients with the dry and bundling the resultant
batter in the oven. Minus the candles, it's an effortless everyday cake, good for lunchboxes and picnics, easily cut and carried. Equally suited to forks or fingers.
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.
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.
