Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Blood Orange Cake

We were invited for dinner by some friends who are lactose intolerant. So the trick was to come up with a dessert with no dairy whatsoever. The result was this delicious blood orange cake, inspired by Jamie Oliver.
To further cement the choice, we were at a local business walkabout last Saturday and came across an olive oil store called 1899. It's in Deep Ellum, in Dallas. There they had a blood orange infused olive oil. So all the auguries were in the right place for an experiment. Fortunately these are good friends and experimentation is encouraged.
Madame pronounced that "we can serve this to people", so we know that it was good!

Ingredients

5 Blood oranges (any orange will do, but blood oranges are pretty) - divided use, zest and juice
3/4 cup honey (divided use) - warmed to ensure that it is runny
7 Fluid ounces good quality olive oil (We used blood orange infused oil, unflavored would be fine too)
3 eggs
2/3 cups stone ground cornmeal (medium grind)
2 cups ground almonds

Method - Cake

Prepare an 8" spring form pan by spraying the sides with cooking spray and placing a parchment round in the bottom. Preheat the oven to 325F.
Whisk together the olive oil and 5 oz of the warmed honey until well combined. Whisk in the eggs and continue beating for 2 minutes. Add the zest of 3 oranges. Fold in the almonds, cornmeal and juice of 2 oranges.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for around 40 minutes - until a toothpick comes out clean. Leave to cool for a few minutes before turning the cake out of the pan gently - after loosening the sides with an offset spatula or paring knife..

Method - Sauce

Stir the remaining honey and orange juice together in a small saucier. Bring to the boil and reduce to about 1/2 the volume.

Method - Serving

I remembered how good orange juice and bourbon are together. So when I saw that our hosts had some of the excellent Blanton's Original Bourbon, a small glass of that, together with the cake with warmed sauce poured over seemed like the right thing to do.
It was.

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