Cardamon & Orange Pound Cake

This cake is part of my continuing search for the perfect snack to eat outside the library.

It needs to be:
a/ robust enough to handle being bashed around in my bag.
b/ self-sufficient - i.e not need anything else to go with it (including tea).
c/ filling enough to fuel reading.
d/ able to keep well so I can have it for several days.
e/ tempting enough to be used to reward/bribe myself.

This recipe fulfils all my criteria.

Pound cake is a term for a traditional creamed sponge, so named because they used to make huge cakes involving a pound (around 450g) each of butter, flour, sugar and eggs. This is a slightly different recipe - with the oil and milk and so on - but its roots lie in that tradition.

I flavoured the cake with orange zest and freshly ground cardamon. I wanted the flavours to be subtle instead of punchy - as I'm eating it unadorned, there aren't any other flavours competing, so it doesn't need to hit you over the head.

I had a friend coming round the evening I made the cake, so I siphoned off a bit of the mixture into a tiny loaf tin so it would bake faster and we could eat it earlier. Alas, my genius plan was flawed - I had to wait for the big cake to nearly finish baking so it didn't sink because I'd opened the door. So yes. It's not a shortcut.

Also - if your kitchen starts smelling very strongly of orange cough syrup while the cake bakes, do not panic. The cake itself does not smell of orange cough syrup and it does not taste of orange cough syrup. It freaked me out. I don't like orange cough syrup.

P.S. I'm getting glammed up and heading to the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards tonight - wish me luck!

Cardamon & Orange Loaf Cake
(adapted from Alice Medrich's Olive Oil Pound Cake in Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts)

zest of an orange
200g caster sugar (I used golden)
4 whole cardamon pods
165ml extra virgin olive oil
big pinch of fine sea salt
3 eggs, cold from the fridge
200g plain flour
1 and 1/4 tsp baking powder
165ml milk

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a 9x4" (23x10cm) loaf tin with baking parchment. In the bowl of a stand mixer (ignore my other bowl above, this will save on your washing up), rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers until the sugar has turned orange (this releases the oils in the zest). Crack the cardamon pods by crushing them with the side of a knife. Remove all of the little black seeds and discard the shells. Grind the seeds up with a pestle and mortar. Add the cardamon, olive oil and salt to the mixer bowl. Beat with the paddle attachment until combined. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well between each addition. Beat on medium-high for 5 minutes - the mixture should look paler and thicker.

Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add a third of the flour to the mixer, stirring on low until combined. Add half the milk, then another third of the flour, the rest of the milk and the rest of the flour, mixing until uniform in between each addition. The mixture will be pretty liquid. Scrape the beater and the sides down and fold in. Pour into the prepared tin and place in the bottom third of the oven. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes until well risen, golden brown and a knife/cake tester can be removed cleanly from the middle. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes then remove from the tin. Keeps well for four or five days in airtight tin/box and freezes well.

(Makes one loaf)

Homemade Granola

I like my granola darkly toasted and clumpy, strewn with fruit, light on seeds, heavy on pecans and salty-sweet-savoury from sea salt, honey and extra virgin olive oil.



Originally I added the dried fruits at the beginning but they became too crunchy and you couldn't really detect the flavours. Now I add them near the end - just long enough for the fruits to soak up some of the liquid and meld into the mixture.

For breakfast, I dollop a few spoons of greek yogurt into my bowl, add whatever fresh fruit is to hand (sliced apple or banana, berries etc), splash in some milk and then scatter a handful of the granola over the top. It's also good with straight milk, though I like the complexity some fruit and slightly sour yogurt adds. Sometimes I take a little box of it to the library, to eat outside when I'm getting some fresh air. It's my granola break - a fag break for sugar-dependent non-smokers.

Finally, learn from my mistake: don't put it in a clear plastic box on your worktop. Whenever I'm in the kitchen I find it impossible to keep my hands from cracking the sides of the lid open and sneaking a few clumps. It taunts me every time I make a cup of tea.



Homemade Granola
(adapted from Nekisia Davis' recipe on Food 52)

135g oats - rolled or porridge or a mixture
60g pecan halves, broken up/chopped
20g brown sugar*
30g sunflower seeds
30g coconut strips
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 - 1 tsp fine sea salt
1/8 tsp ground/microplaned nutmeg
100ml runny honey or maple syrup
70ml extra virgin olive oil
40g dried cranberries
40g dried apricots, roughly chopped
30g raisins

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F. Get out a big mixing bowl and add the oats, pecan halves, sugar, sunflower seeds, coconut, cinnamon, 1/2 tsp sea salt and nutmeg (I put the bowl on my scales and zero as I add each one). Stir together. Add the honey and olive oil and stir well. Tip out onto a big baking sheet (with some sort of side) and spread out.

Put into the oven and bake for 10 minutes then stir (don't worry about how gloopy it looks) and put back in for another 15 minutes. Add the cranberries, apricots and raisins and stir in. Put back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes until the granola is a rich golden brown. Stir occasionally as it cools, breaking into small clumps if needed and scraping the bottom. Add the extra salt if you think it needs it. Keeps well in a sealed box or tin (mine has always run out in under a week).

(Makes 1 smallish batch, easy to scale up)

Tip: I pour the oil into my measuring jug first, then tip it around a bit so the sides are oily. Then pour in the honey up to the 170ml mark. It'll slip easily out into the bowl without the honey sticking.

* UPDATE 2014 - I now use 20g instead of 40g sugar - it's a touch less sweet and the flavours seem more pronounced. I mix and match the add-ins (i.e. nuts, seeds and fruits) according to my cupboard that day - dried cherries and chunkily chopped skin-on whole almonds are some of my new favourites. I also switch between honey and maple syrup - you can use the same volume.

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)