This is my take on the Sicilian whole orange cake, using both Cara Cara orange & blood orange. For the past couple weeks, I have been watching The Bear. In the beginning, Marcus makes a chocolate cake with orange zest on top, based on a donut with chocolate icing and orange zest. As soon as I saw this, I had a hankering for something chocolate and orange. I begun scrolling through Pinterest for chocolate cake recipes, that I would find a way to incorporate orange into. After about 10 seconds of scrolling my stomach hurt. I am not a big chocolate person. Any more than a few bites is just overwhelming for me in terms of richness and decadence. It is often too much. I do, however, Love the flavor combination of chocolate and orange. So, I decided to instead make an orange cake and put a little chocolate on it. I served this cake with chocolate shaved onto the slice. I’m not entirely sure that was the best way to have it, it satisfied my craving though. I think it would go nice as is with some vanilla bean ice cream. It is also great by itself! Beware: this will make your entire house smell amazing. This must be what it smells like to live inside of an orange.
Ingredients – Cake:
- 2 Cara Cara oranges
- 2 blood oranges
- 3 eggs
- 1 ⅛ cups granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup unsalted sweet cream butter
- ⅓ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- 2 ½ tsp baking powder
- vanilla extract
- cinnamon
- optional: 60% cacao chocolate
Ingredients – Glaze:
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- juice from approximately 1 orange
First, the cake. I will say, this recipe would be difficult without a food processor. I would recommend having one if you would like to make this. A blender would probably also suffice. The first thing you will want to do is roughly cut up one Cara Cara orange and one blood orange, make sure the seeds are removed, and place them into your food processor. Yes, peel and all. Process until they are almost puréed. Set this aside. Take the other 2 oranges for your glaze, and cut in half. Cut one of each of the halves into thin slices, and squeeze the juice of the other halves over a strainer into a small pot. Set aside the pot as well. This will be for the glaze. In a mixing bowl, combine your 3 eggs and 1 ⅛ cups of sugar and beat with a mixer until they are light and airy. You do not need to form peaks. The right consistency is just a small step below soft peaks. I use a whisk attachment on my hand mixer for this.
Preheat your oven to 350°.
(Side note: I really love the hand mixer that I have. I got it on Amazon, and it is actually a combined hand mixer, immersion blender, and food processor. It is wireless and rechargeable. Here is a link~ Immersion Blender Combo)
Once you have your egg and sugar mixture, add in your softened butter in a few pieces, mixing in between. Sift in the flour and baking powder in parts as well, mixing in between. Once all of that is combined, add the orange purée as well as the yogurt, a dash of vanilla, and a shake of cinnamon and mix until combined. It will be a little bit lumpy! That is ok.
The batter is complete. Grab an 8×8 circular pan, and lay down some parchment paper. I like to press mine in with my other 8×8 pan so that it really conforms to the shape. Spray with a little olive oil, or cooking spray of your choice. Grab your thin orange slices and arrange them in the bottom of the pan. Pour the cake batter over this. Smooth out the top, and place in the oven for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for a little while, and when you’re ready, flip it upside down onto a cake stand or dish.
While your cake is finishing cooling, you can make the glaze. Grab your pot of juice from earlier, and add ⅓ cup of sugar to it. Stir over medium-low heat until it reaches your desired consistency. Even if you let it go too long, that’s OK because then the glaze will harden almost like a creme brûlée crust on top of your cake. A matter of personal preference! Pour your glaze over the cake once it is most of the way cooled down. Serve with chocolate shavings, with french vanilla ice cream, or all by it’s lonesome! It’s delicious either way.
九生 