Norwegian Easter Orange Cake

I know it has been forever, and most likely you have all given up on me completely. But I am back, and I am hoping to make it a regular thing again. A lot has happened that has made it hard for me to sit down and write anything here. The main thing being the outrageous pressure that develops the longer I let it go, like if I come back to writing, not only does the thing I've made need to be of the most impressive level, made with layers of homemade ingredients that required fermentation, canning, smoking, straining, cultures and foraging all rolled into one, but also, the pressure for the description to be filled with clever bon mots and important musings and observations on the food movement... Well you are not going to get any of that here, just a lame pick up where we left off...

I am still making a lot of food from scratch, and or just not buying much that is processed in any way. I can't say I am living with the strictness that I was in the early days of this blog, however the return to normal has been slow. These days we do buy yogurt, bread, mayo & mustard. I even have to admit that this week I broke down and bought a couple of emergency cans of turkey chili and split pea soup. From time to time we buy cheese, but we don't consume it anywhere near as much as we once did. I do regularly buy the string cheese and little things of apple sauce for (no longer baby) J to take in his lunch to preschool. There are other sins I am omitting here, but today is not about full confessions, it's about moving forward. I have made a good number of fun and interesting things in the last year that I have wanted to share and haven't so let's just get to it.

In the Los Angeles Times food section the week before Easter they did a whole spread about Scandinavian Easter traditions. My strongest connection to that culture is being very susceptible to sunburn and a big fan of Tales from Lake Wobegon. But for some reason I have been very drawn to the food from that region recently. The most interesting thing in that article said that in Norway, a country of about 5 million people, 20 million oranges and a few million tangerines and clementines are consumed Easter Weekend every year. That is more than 5 citrus fruits per person. And that is three times as many as are consumed the entire rest of the year. Of course oranges do not crow in Norway at all, so it is not a show of national pride in the bounty the native land provides. I googled around a bit, and found several other references to the popular consumption of oranges in the Easter Season, but not any definitive reasons for it. The most logical hypothesis is that Easter seems to have it's pre-religious origins in the celebration of the end of winter and welcoming of spring. Oranges, with their striking visual similarity to the sun, and juicy deliciousness symbolize warm days on the horizon and coming out of the long, dark days of Scandinavian Winter. It is funny to me living in Southern California, where oranges are extremely abundant, citrus is the symbol of winter to me now and spring is marked by strawberries and blueberries and the moving away from a steady diet of oranges and clementines. I forget how spoiled we are. This recipe is more of a fond farewell to winter than a welcome to spring, but I like it either way.

Norwegian orange cake

Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes plus cooling time
Servings: 10 to 16

3/4 cup (1½ sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
Grated zest of 1 orange
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons orange juice, divided
1 1/3 cups (5.7 ounces) flour (I made this twice, the first time with all-purpose flour and I thought it was dry, so I tried it again with cake flour and thought it was much better)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 ounces dark chocolate (preferably 70%), finely chopped
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Candied orange peel for garnish (I didn't have this because I didn't have time to shop for it, but I'm sure it makes it look more impressive)

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the beater attachment, or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, beat the butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly incorporated. Beat in the orange zest and one-third cup juice.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. With the mixer running, slowly add the flour mixture until combined to form the cake batter. Fold in the chopped chocolate.

3. Place the batter into a greased and floured 9-inch bundt pan, smoothing the top of the batter. (The batter will come slightly less than halfway up the sides of the pan.)

4. Bake the cake until puffed and lightly browned on top and a toothpick or cake tester inserted comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes. (The first time I made this I cooked it for 45 min and it seemed a little overdone, the second time for 37 min and even then maybe it could have come out sooner. This is odd because as you may have noticed, I usually have to cook things way longer than is recommended.) Remove from the oven and cool in the pan on a cooling rack, then remove from the mold. The finished cake will be about 3 inches tall in the center.

5. While the cake is cooling, make the icing: In a medium bowl, sift the powdered sugar. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons orange juice and whisk to form the icing.

6. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cake, then garnish with the candied orange.

Third time's a charm?

I think it's time to move on to a new recipe. I made the Yellow Cake for the third time last night. This time I used actual cake flour.

 

As mentioned on the box, it is 27 times finer than all purpose flour. I really did notice a difference, it was incredibly soft, I wanted to lie down in it. And it did make a big difference in the final product, the texture of the cake was much softer. However,  IT WAS STILL DRY!!! I even added an additional two tablespoons of butter, and was very generous in my measuring of the milk. I did make an error with the assembly again (I think it is the same error I made the first time, involving the milk.) I added the entire 1 cup to the egg yolks, instead of just using a 1/4 cup there, and adding the other 3/4 cup to the dry mixture first. This may be the crux of the problem, as I understand it has something to do with the gluten breakdown (blah, blah, blah) anyway, I blame the recipe, because it says 1 cup milk in the ingredient list, rather than breaking it down into the two measurements. I have since changed it in my version, for your benefit, and in case I ever decide to try this one again. But my audience is loosing patience with repeated episodes of dry cake, so it will probably be a while. 

This one was for my brother Mike's birthday. We had fun anyway, and it didn't stop us from eating half the cake. 

 

That Chocolate Frosting recipe is a keeper though, it saves the cake every time.

Catch up and DRs Birthday

Oh my, a lot of food has been made since I last wrote. Most of it pretty banal, but all of it from scratch. I have been struggling with motivation on a level that shouldn't already be a problem so early in the year, so close to the making of New Years resolutions, resolutions that haven't even been given enough of a chance to fail. I read somewhere that it takes a month to break or start a habit, and now four months (almost) into this project, the making of the food is the new normal. There are so many things that don't even feel like effort any more, like making bread or granola. Even yogurt is only a mild effort. I finally had to make baking powder, and it really couldn't have been easier. I did have a totally unsuccessful go at making sour cream for DR's birthday chili, which was weird because I made it over the Christmas holiday and it worked out fine. But I guess I'll have to revisit that to see what went wrong. It was probably the fact that we were having guests, DRs friends who already think I am a little nutty came over to play poker, and partake of the weird set of snacks that result from trying to stay within the rules. There was an olive tray (remember the olive amendment), that included pickled okra left over from Thanksgiving, Tex-Mex Chili with tortilla chips which were made by cutting into triangles and frying corn tortillas that have been in our fridge since September (I didn't mention this to the guests), guacamole (this falls under the handmade by someone else rule - they make it fresh at Figueroa Produce), the sour cream that never set, nuts, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

I revisited the cake recipe from Baby J's birthday and set out with such high hopes that I was correcting all my previous mistakes. I bought actual pastry flour, assembled it while Baby J was sleeping so that he wouldn't distract me from combining the ingredients in the proper order, carefully sifted the flour, everything was going so well. It all started to fall apart when I tried to use the roasting rack in place of a cooling rack and totally split the first layer all to pieces.

I was devastated, but the second came layer out perfectly,

and DR was able to frost them so you couldn't tell at all, so I was sure that crisis had been averted and it was going to be wonderful, (my sampling of warm, broken piece was wonderful as only warm, broken pieces can be). But when it came to eating it actual slices of cake it was dry as dirt. The frosting was great, but I think the cake was even worse than the first one. I am blaming the flour. I was so excited to find actual Pastry Flour that I didn't take in that it was whole wheat pastry flour. (I'm also easily seduced by promises of making things that are delicious and better for you at the same time.)

It has come to my attention that whole wheat flour sucks moisture out of baked goods at significantly higher rate than white flour. I guess I thought it being pastry flour meant that it self corrected for the whole wheat aspect. I would like to test the theory of making it again with the an additional egg yolk and a little more milk, but I can't bear the possibility of another disappointment just yet. And it is quite a bit of cake for two adults to have around the house... and no matter how dry and awful it is, somehow I still end up eating it. The whole adventure was not lost, however because I got to test a little bit of knowledge passed on to me by my sister KK at Christmastime... Before shopping for the cake and frosting I noted that we had a box of powdered/confectioners sugar left over from the cake I made in December, so I didn't buy anymore. I didn't note that I need 3 cups of it, and that the 4 cup box was 3/4 empty. But in discussing making some dessert for Christmas, KK mentioned that you can make confectioners sugar by putting regular sugar in a coffee grinder.

 

The name powdered sugar should have tipped me off, that it's just sugar, powdered. Anyway, this was a thrilling discovery that worked out great, though it was pretty time consuming making sure all the grains were ground up. I had to grind it in batches, and run each batch through twice. But the frosting was delicious, so at least something worked out. 

Chocolate Frosting

This recipe is from thejoyofbaking.com 

8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup cocoa powder (can use Dutch-processed or regular unsweetened cocoa powder)

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3 cups confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted to remove lumps (I don't have a sifter, so this was a little lumpy until I mixed it with the hand mixer after chilling.)

1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, put the chopped chocolate, cocoa powder, milk, and butter.  Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.  Remove from heat and beat in, with a hand mixer or wire whisk, the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract.  If the frosting is lumpy, strain through a strainer to remove any lumps.  Cover and place the frosting in the refrigerator until it is firm (this may take a few hours).  Once the frosting is firm remove from refrigerator and place in your mixing bowl.  Beat the frosting for a minute or two or until it is nice and smooth and of spreading consistency.

Assemble:  Place one cake layer on your serving plate and spread with about 3/4 cup of frosting.  Place the other cake layer on top of the frosting and cover the entire cake with the remaining frosting.  Cover and refrigerate the cake until serving time.

Makes one - 9 inch (23 cm) layer cake.

Yellow Butter Cake

I found this recipe on thejoyofbaking.com

There is a long description of how to combine the ingredients and why the order and process is important to the actual moistness of the cake. Due to the fact that my cooking assistant was a one year old birthday boy who thinks he's too big for a nap, I completely messed up this delicate process. The result was not the perfectly moist cake that was promised, but rather a kind of dry and crumbly one. The birthday boy in question had no reservations about enjoying his very first slice of cake, but I was disappointed....

However, I was comforted in knowing that this information matters, and that if I had followed the directions properly the cake would have been perfect, and in the future I might just do that.

6 large egg yolks

1/4 cup milk + 3/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

3 cups sifted cake flour (I couldn't find cake flour at the store, but my brilliant baker cousin Molly informed me that I could just substitute all purpose flour with a bit of corn starch, and a little internet searching proved this to be true. Cornstarch lightens all purpose flour and reduces the protein content... however using actual cake flour probably would have helped some.)

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar 

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder 

3/4 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into pieces (I was a little impatient with the butter getting to room temp. It was probably too cold)

Preheat oven to 350º F.  

Butter two 9-inch x 1 1/2 inch cake pans, line bottoms with parchment paper, then butter the parchment paper. Set aside.

In a medium bowl lightly combine the egg yolks, 1/4 cup milk, and vanilla extract. (pay attention here! I added the entire cup of milk at this point...this was a crucial error!)

In the bowl of your electric mixer combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds or until blended.

Add the butter and remaining 3/4 cup milk. ( I had to start adding the egg mixture here because of my milk error, which means the gluten didn't have a chance to break down before I added the liquid, which has a toughening effect, which is why the cake was dry.) Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened.  Increase the speed to medium and beat for about 2 minutes to aerate and develop the cake's structure.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Gradually add the egg mixture, in 3 additions, beating about 30 seconds after each addition to incorporate the egg.  

Divide the batter and pour into the prepared pans, smoothing the surface with an offset spatula.  (Pans will be about half full.) Bake 25 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in center.  

Place the cakes on a wire rack to cool, in their pans, for about 10 minutes.  Then invert the cakes onto a greased rack.  To prevent splitting, re-invert cakes so that tops are right side up.  Cool completely before frosting.