Grapefruit Olive Oil Cake

As I was dusting off my bundt tin this morning, I realised that the last time I'd used it was to make the Ginger Root Bundt Cake. In that post, I wrote about taking my friend Helen for a bon voyage lunch at Dinner. I gave her a slice of the cake on that blustery November day.

Chance has it that today we had our welcome home lunch, as she flew in yesterday from Hong Kong. So I wrapped a slice of this up for her and took it with me - a full circle of cake, literally and metaphorically.



Once again we had a delicious lunch. We followed the foodie hordes to the tiny Pitt Cue Co in Soho, which opened a few weeks ago after running a very successful food truck last summer. They say it's the best American style BBQ in London. I had some incredibly tender pork ribs (the St Louis ribs) with some creamy mash, a little slaw, some pickles and a hunk of charred sourdough. I was covered in sauce and made an absolute mess.

Despite being stuffed we shared the bourbon and salted caramel sticky toffee pudding & ice cream. It was seriously good, probably the best I've ever had. Their dessert menu doesn't seem to be fixed, but if you go and they mention it - pounce.



This bundt was born out of my desire to try baking with grapefruit, mainly inspired by Kaitlin. I've commented on several of her posts like this or this saying I really should try it out. So here I am.

Before this my main use for grapefruit was eating it for breakfast. Usually I jazz it up by sprinkling caster sugar over the top and blasting it with the blow torch to create a crackly caramel topping. I made this cake early this morning (as I had to make and photograph it before the aforementioned lunch) so I had the other grapefruit (as you can see in the 2nd photo) and remaining yogurt for breakfast, which felt quite neat.

This recipe popped up in my reader a few days ago. It's from a beautiful blog, The Yellow House. I particularly liked that you start by rubbing the zest into the brown sugar to release the oils (as in the photo above). In the end, it's a very light and fluffy cake. It's not very sweet but, as Sarah said, quite "zingy and earthy". The fruity olive oil comes through clearly, as does the characteristic grapefruit. I can smell the wholemeal flour (is that weird? Do other people smell it even if they can't taste it?).

I think it would be perfect as part of a weekend brunch spread - or for second breakfast, elevensies or afternoon tea (yes, I do eat like a hobbit).



Grapefruit Olive Oil Cake
(adapted from the The Yellow House, who adapted from Melissa Clark)

2 grapefruit
180g light brown sugar
50-100ml plain yogurt
3 eggs
180ml extra virgin olive oil
115g plain flour
85g wholemeal flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Carefully butter the bundt mould (especially the bottom), dust with flour then tap to remove the excess. Zest both grapefruit into a big bowl. Add the sugar and rub the two together as if you're making pastry (this releases the oils from the zest) and make sure there are no lumps. Sift the flours, baking power, bicarbonate and salt together into another bowl.

Juice one grapefruit into a measuring cup - hopefully this will be between 65-100ml (if not add some from the other fruit). Top up with the yogurt to 165ml. Add to the zest/sugar mix and whisk until combined. Pour in the olive oil, whisk, then add the eggs and whisk again until silky smooth. Tip the flour into the bowl and fold in with the whisk until everything is combined - don't overwork. Pour into the tin and put into the oven. Bake until golden brown and a skewer/toothpick comes out clean from the middle - mine took 35 minutes, but it could be up to about 50.

Leave to cool on a rack for 10 minutes or so then turn out - I put a plate or rack on top then flip over. You might need to give it a tap. Stir the icing sugar with a bit of leftover grapefruit juice until it's thick and smooth. Drizzle over the top of the cooled cake.

(Serves about 6-8)

Cranberry, Orange and Acacia Honey Steamed Pudding

Being British, I probably should have made a steamed pudding before. I did have it on my to-bake list but it didn't get crossed off until it became April's challenge for the Daring Bakers. Conversely, I wanted to make it before I came back to Britain, and as a result, I couldn't find the suet we were asked to use if possible. Instead, I adapted two butter based recipes for my purposes...



Looking at all the treacle and golden syrup puddings, I decided that it was a shame that honey didn't seem to be used (I'm quite sure that people used to make - and still do make - honey steamed puddings, but I couldn't find a recipe).

As a result I decided that I should use up one of the little pots of swiss honey we buy each summer at the market. They have an uncanny ability to split slightly and cause a small flood of honey in the cupboard, which meant that the pot of Acacia honey had been sitting in my mum's special hot chocolate mug for several months. To free her mug and to create an excuse to buy some more this summer, I used the remainder of that pot up. We still have several nearly dead ones that we don't have the heart to throw out, as you can see above.



To complement this gorgeous honey flavour, I decided to add soaked dried cranberries for a bit of a sharp kick and some lovely colour. For the first time it seems that they have started stocking dried cranberries in the supermarket at home (YES, cranberry sauce with the turkey at Christmas!) and so I wanted to try baking with them.  Before I used them, I soaked them overnight in some of the honey and the juice of an orange.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.



I then added some of the cranberry soaking juice to an additional few tablespoons of honey in the bottom of my pudding bowl. For the pudding itself I made the butter based pudding then added the cranberries and some orange rind and steamed it in Mum's big old le creuset vegetable steamer.

I served my pudding with an orange infused custard, which was lovely. I think mine somehow sunk when I had a peek to see if it was done with about 15 minutes to go - it wasn't done and when it was, it was pretty solid instead of spongey. The flavours were nice but I think I should probably try a different recipe another time.

Blood Orange and Rosemary Tian

Like many others, I came to this challenge with no idea what an 'orange tian' was. It turned out to be a lovely dessert - crisp, shortbread-esque pate sablee smoothed with homemade marmalade, smoothed over with scented whipped cream and topped by orange segments seeped in caramel. 

Despite having never tasted an orange tian before, I decided to play with the flavours. I swapped in blood oranges instead of 'blonde' oranges (as they call them here in Switzerland) as I simply cannot resist their flavour and I thought they would look stunning in the dessert. 

I also decided to be 'daring' and incorporate rosemary. I absolutely love rosemary, but I usually only use it in savoury dishes. I had a hunch it would work well in the cream layer of the dessert. And so my mum walked in on me standing in the kitchen alternately delicately chewing a leaf of rosemary and a segment of blood orange. 

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I was very excited when I noticed that the recipe included making marmalade. I haven't made any jams since I used to as a child with my Grandma. Now I think back to it, I'm not quite sure why I was often left in charge of a big pot of boiling sugar, standing on my little stool by the Aga with a very long spoon. Still, it's one of my most treasured memories of my Grandma. 

The resulting marmalade is really very tasty. I was worried that the pith would still be bitter despite the multiple blanchings, but it mellowed out in the end product. I decided to try and not use pectin and try to use pips instead. Unfortunately my oranges didn't have any pips, but I found a lemon in the fridge and used those instead, tied in a little square of muslin. It firmed up beautifully. 

Another new element was the pate sablee (my accents don't seem to be working, so excuse the lack of them). It's the richest of the french pastry crusts and really very tasty. The method was unusual too - you have to beat the egg yolk and sugar till pale and creamy before adding it to the ice cold butter and flour. I think it would be quite lovely just as biscuits. 

Happily my mum had some old crumpet moulds (which, believe me, are going to be used for their original purpose soon) which I could use as moulds and to cut out rounds of the pastry. I managed to have a bit of a baby-swap with the pastry - I took out the remaining pastry from my Roasted Rhubarb Tarts and used that instead of the sablee! I did think they looked different to others I had seen on the forum but it wasn't till the next day when I spotted my pate sablee dough still waiting patiently in the fridge that I realised my mistake. 

For my tians I used our absolute favourite cream in the world, which stars above. It's unbelievably thick and decadent and has a wonderful flavour that I can never put my finger on. It added a lovely richness to the dessert. On another note, I've always loved the Italian for double cream - doesn't doppia panna create the image of thick, luscious cream dropping off a spoon?

I submerged my spring of rosemary in a sea of the beautiful thick cream and heated it gently to infuse it with the flavour of the herb. It then sat in the fridge overnight before being whipped. When I took it out this morning, I was slightly worried - the cream had set slightly oddly and had small lumps. It seemed to come together when whipped, however. I added a little extra plain whipped cream to smooth it out. I don't think I got quite as much volume on the rosemary cream.  

After having learnt to segment an orange (who knew it was so easy?!) I made my caramel. I was glad that it wasn't my first time making a dry caramel - it's definitely something to get used to and the orange juice really made it foam up.  The orange segements then seeped in half the caramel overnight. When it came to drying them out on kitchen paper I realised we had run out, so they had to make do with coffee filters...

I also found I had to split some of the fatter segments in two to get a nice even layer when placing them in the bottom of the moulds. 

I really enjoyed assembling the tians, with the different layers.  I used the tip off the forums of grating down the edges of the pate sablee to fit the moulds where it had spread during cooking. Amazingly they also easily popped out of the moulds - I just flipped them over onto the plate, peeled off the square of parchment and eased them out. 

They're really tasty - my mum went to try one bite and ending up eating an entire tian. She then spent five minutes going 'MMMMMNN', describing the aftertaste in detail and occasionally saying 'delicious' at random. A success, I feel!

Blood Orange and Rosemary Tian

(Makes four tiny tians and lots of marmalade!)

I don't have time to type all the recipes out today, apart from my changes, but you can find everything you need on the Daring Kitchen website  - just scroll down a little and it'll be there.

My changes - I made half measures of everything except the marmalade. I didn't use pectin in my marmalade, just put some pips in some fabric and heated it for slightly longer. I swapped in blood oranges for the segments and caramel. For the rosemary cream I gently heated the 3/4 of the cream with a sprig of rosemary then left it to seep overnight in the fridge before whipping the rosemary cream and then adding the gelatine. I then beat the remaining 1/4 of the cream and folded that in. 

My Version of Nigella's Clementine Cake

I love almond and citrus cakes. Just a look at my recipes list will confirm this. I first made this infamous cake with the requisite clementines a few years ago and we all loved it. I remember taking the last half of that cake to a New Year's Eve party and being quite miserable to watch the last few slices dissapear as the clock counted down. 

This time I decided to chop and change it a bit - mainly by using blood oranges. The result is really quite delicious - dense, damp, with that wonderful blood orange taste and the most incredible texture on the tongue. 

The first time I tried to make my changed version was on Mothers' Day - I had been plotting about it for ages and I knew my mum would love the idea. But then it wouldn't have been a typical Mothers' Day without me nearly destroying her kitchen: I left the oranges boiling in their water too long - they boiled dry and ruined the pan there were in, getting a bit scorched themselves, as you can see above! Bit of a whoops moment. I made another cake for her but failed to get proper photos, and then followed with my Sticky Toffee Pudding Volcanoes. 

And so I set about making it again yesterday. I changed a few things around from the original recipe: I used the blood oranges instead of clementines, I substituted soft brown sugar for some of the caster sugar, and I added an additional fresh orange. I couldn't make up the right weight with whole oranges so I decided to add a peeled orange to the pulp later, which was about right - it brightened the pulp up and I think contributed to being able to taste the distinct blood orange tinge in the final cake.  

Thankfully this time it went well. I have to admit to having a few doubts when I tasted the mixture, but not to fear, it tastes lovely.  I nearly burnt it but thankfully it held out - helped by the extensive wrapping and foiling needed to protect any cake in my mum's oven as you can see above.... (She's getting the kitchen re-done soon so the oven will stop tormenting me soon, I can't wait.)

Unfortunately the blood oranges I used weren't very bloody so it doesn't have the lovely pink colour I was hoping for. It does have that lovely taste, however. I would love to see what it would look like with some of the incredible ruby blood oranges that seem to be popping up on various blogs.

I'm sure you could use another chocolate to top the cake - I just love the Green and Black's Maya Gold. Any good dark chocolate would work, but the delicate orange and spice flavour in the Maya Gold sets the cake off beautifully. I watched Chocolat last night and it seemed perfect to be using Maya Gold today! That film is pure chocolate porn - totally fabulous. My mum and I now skip through the bits with the nasty Count and just watch the chocolate and Johnny Depp - much more interesting!

My Version of Nigella's Clementine Cake

(Adapted from Nigella's recipe in Green and Black's recipe book, Unwrapped)

For the cake:

2 blood oranges (or 4-5 clementines, 2 normal oranges etc) weighing about 325g

1 additional blood orange, peeled

6 eggs

125g caster sugar

100g soft brown sugar

250g ground almonds (I used half/half skin on/blanched)

1 heaped tsp baking powder

Put the oranges into a saucepan whole and cover with water. Pop a lid on and heat for two hours - it should just boiling. Remove the oranges and let them cool a little before halving and removing any pips. Put into a food processor with the additional peeled orange and blend to a smooth pulp. 

Preheat the oven to 190C. Butter and fully line a 20cm tin. Beat all the eggs together in a big mixing bowl/standing mixer. Add the sugars, almonds and baking powder (you might need to use a sift to get any big lumps out and then replace the bigger almond bits). Mix well. Add the orange pulp and mix again. Transfer to a fully lined tin and put into the oven for 1 hr. You will probably need to cover it with foil to stop the top burning after 30-40 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin. 

To top:

50g Green and Blacks Maya Gold or another orange spiced chocolate - or just dark chocolate

Melt the chocolate and dribble over the cake. I like to eat a slice while it's still melted... The cake is best left till the next day before eating.

Dark Chocolate and Blood Orange Cupcakes

I got back to Oxford on Tuesday, so am now dislocated from my kitchen. It's beautiful weather here, and Oxford looks beautiful in it (it always does, but sunshine transforms the sandstone) - though it's now thronging with tourists but I don't blame them, it's gorgeous. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos when it was really stunning. Luckily my college isn't one of the big big ones, like Christ Church, that has tourists coming round and prying into every nook and cranny of our lives - though I do have friends who have people peering into their bedrooms and even coming in sometimes! I know we live in a beautiful place, but it's a working place our privacy is important too... though I would deal with that if I could have a kitchen! At least this is my last term - last eight weeks - before we get a kitchen in our flats.

Luckily I have a few recipes/photos leftover from the holidays, so I will be able to post them. It's interesting seeing how I feel my photography has come on just in the time since I've started writing this blog - practice does at least go towards making perfect, it seems. I may also do some with just ideas/photos/musing on what I've been eating - and with the quality of my hall food, I eat out a lot...

I made these cupcakes at the beginning of the holiday when mum had bought a bumper amount of blood oranges - mum always squeezes oranges on the magimix before breakfast, and loves to add some blood oranges or grapefruit to add a little interest - though there's nothing better than a batch of really good sweet oranges. I swear it's given me funny blood sugar patterns though - from an early age I had that big sugar rush of about 3 squeezed oranges within half an hour of waking up and now I feel quite ill if I don't have it/something else soon after getting up!

Anyway, I decided to see what happened if I made a chocolate orange style cupcake with them. I didn't really use a recipe - just played about and they came out really nicely. I don't really like lots of icing on cupcakes - sacrilege I know - so it's a nice compromise to add a square of nice chocolate to add another texture to an otherwise plain cupcake, even if it is full of flavour. I could deal with a chocolate ganache on these, actually - it's mainly the pure sugar buttercream like ones I can't deal with.

Blood Orange and Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Edit: I've removed the recipe as I'm not happy with it and don't want you to try it and be disappointed.