Before I begin talking about food I'll just share the low-down of what I've been up to this past week. I ended my European adventure and got back to Canada on June 15th. The weather was beautiful, it was so nice to catch up with everyone, and I found I had developed a greater appreciation for Toronto. I was there for a few days before leaving again on the 21st to fly to Buenos Aires in Argentina. I have some family here and I also met up with my friend Brigid who has recently been doing a bit of travelling of her own. For just over a month Brigid and I will be visiting a few different places in South America--where we will be going still needs to be determined...
I have always wanted to travel to South America so it is great being in Argentina now although it is their winter and the weather is a bit sad. Brigid and I are taking a couple of days to get over our jet lag (I have no excuse because it is just an hour ahead here but she just came from Australia) and to finally create a rough plan of where we want to visit. I thought I would take advantage of this time of rest to complete the blog post I started just before I left for the airport on Tuesday.
When I was in high school my mother used to always buy issues of the BBC Good Food magazine. They were one of my favourite magazines to flip through (food geek) and my mum now has a couple of folders with clippings of some of our favourite recipes. This orange and poppyseed cake is one of the really good ones we have in there.
The Saturday I was back in town, my sister invited us over to her place for a barbeque (scrolll down to see pictures of her lovley table decor and her cute pup, Olive) and I thought I would make this cake to bring for dessert. I find that oranges are usually featured in more wintry dishes (their season tends to end in April), but with the custard and citrusy notes, I think this recipe works quite well for a summer barbeque.
Here are some of my notes:
1) Try to cut the oranges as thinly as possible. The orange slices that I featured on top of the cake were quite thick. Because of their thickness they were less likely to fall apart while being poached and therefore were more attractive. However, the thicker density was manageable but also on the boarder of being 'too much' when it came to eating them.
2) The recipe calls for a 20 cm pan which is approximately 8 inches. I used a 9 inch spring-form pan because that's what we had. It was fine but using the smaller size would have been a bit better because the cake would have been taller and therefore easier to slice into three (and I think it would have been prettier). The recipe doesn't make a whole lot of the custard filling so if you have a smaller area to cover you can also put it on more liberally.
3) There are quite a few steps to making this cake (baking the cake, making the custard, poaching the oranges, waiting for everything to cool, etc) so it's good to give yourself at least a few hours to make it. You could easily subsitute making your own custard with one that is ready-made and just combine it with the citrus juices and zest. Also the cake would probably benefit from being made the day before and being chilled overnight because that would allow for all the flavours to blend into one another. All in all it is such a delicious and really flavourful cake!
Since I am on the road again until the end of July, this is probably the last post I will be able to put up for a while. I promise to take lots of pictures of my travels in South America and will put them on here once I return to Canada. Until then, hope you enjoy the photos and even the cake if you get a chance to make it!
Ingredients
Poached Orange Slices:
2 medium oranges
350g/12oz caster sugar
Cake:
150g/5oz self-raising flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
150g/5oz ground almonds
2 1/2 Tbsp poppy seeds
3 medium eggs
Orange Curd:
4 medium eggs
juice and grated zest of 1 large orange and lemon
100g/4oz caster sugar
100g/4oz unsalted butter
1. Preheat the oven to fan 160C/conventional 180C/gas 4. Thinly slice the unpeeled oranges then put them in a saucepan with 400ml/14floz water and the sugar. Stir everything around and poach the oranges, covered, over a medium heat for 20 minutes until the pith feels soft when tested with a sharp knife. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
2. Grease and line a 20 cm spring-form cake tin and arrange the nicest poached orange slices (about seven) in the bottom. Strain the remaining orange slices, keeping the poaching liquid. Purée 100g/4oz of the oranges together with 75ml/2 1/2 fl oz of the liquid, to make a smooth mixture (a hand blender is great for this).
3. To make the cake, mix the flour, baking powder, almonds and poppy seeds together and put aside. Whisk the eggs with the caster sugar until the mixture looks like softly whipped cream. This will take 5-7 minutes. Immediately fold in the orange purée very gently using a spatula, so you don't knock out all the air.
4. Fold the dry ingredients into the foamy orange mix, stopping as soon as it's combined. Carefully pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden brown and springy to the touch. Test with a skewer - if it comes out clean from the centre, the cake is cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin. When cool, turn the cake out so the orange slices are uppermost.
5. While the cake is cooling, make the curd. Beat the eggs with the orange and lemon juices, then strain into a bowl. Add the sugar, butter and orange and lemon zest, then place the bowl over a pan one-third full of boiling water. Stir over the heat until the mixture thickens - it's ready when it thickly coats the back of your spoon (this could take up to 30 minutes, so be patient). Leave to cool.
6. Cut the cake across twice, into three sections. Brush the middle and bottom layers with some of the leftover syrup. Divide the curd between the layers and spread it out, then sandwich all three sections together. Brush the top with more syrup. Let the cake sit for a few hours to allow flavours to develop. It keeps for 3-4 days in the fridge.
Here are a few pictures from the BBQ, with the guest of honour, Olive
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