I’m finally getting around to sharing one of the two great new recipes I made last weekend. What I loved about this recipe was its delicious simplicity. While I love an occasional cupcake or slice of cake with really good buttercream (read: not that cheap, grainy stuff made with shortening), I find that my taste in cake increasingly turns to those quieter concoctions that don’t need the flash of frosting. This one fits the bill. As a bonus, it involves citrus, which is what my tastebuds tend to turn to in desserts if I’m taking a break from chocolate, my true love. This recipe comes from The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, a book I plan to cook from a LOT this summer! Yes, this cake has a cup-and-a-half of sugar, but again, it doesn’t have frosting, and it has other healthful ingredients like oranges and whole-wheat pastry flour and a moderate amount of olive oil.
Tunisian Orange-Olive Oil Cake
Adapted from The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook
Makes one 9-inch cake, 8 servings
Ingredients:
Butter and flour for the cake pan
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 small organically raised oranges, preferably blood oranges (about 3/4 pound)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch springform cake pan
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda.
- Slice off the tops and bottoms of each orange, where the skin is very thick; discard. Cut the oranges into chunks, skin and all, discarding any seeds (seeds will make the batter bitter).
- Put the orange chunks into a food processor and pulse until you have a chunky puree. Pour the olive oil through the feed tube while the processor is running, and mix until it seems slightly creamy.
- In a separate bowl. beat the eggs until very thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in the sugar. Beat in the vanilla.
- Fold about one-third of the flour mixture into the eggs, then fold in about one-third of he orange mixture. Continue to add and fold in the flour and orange mixtures alternately until everything is thoroughly combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and bake for 20 minute, then lower the temperature to 325 degrees F and bake for 30 minutes more OR until the cake is golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove cake from oven and let cool. Remove springform pan sides and serve. (Wrapped in plastic wrap, this cake stayed nice and moist for a few days…until it was gone.)
In other news, you can find my latest “On Nutrition” column in The Seattle Times here. Please don’t feed the comment trolls. Sigh.