Friday 27 April 2012

If I knew you were coming...



1. Pile up all your recipe books that have a sweet section and randomly choose one.
2. Select a desert recipe from it. (Randomly of course).
3. Finally bake the sweet thing to celebrate Dom of the Belleau Kitchen's second year in the world of food blogging.

Easy, a closed-eye fumble produced Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam'...Hurray great pick. So would, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights have been...which sounds like the title of a Roald Dahl story doesn't it?...Or Falling Cloudberries...which kind of does too!

Double hurray...it opened up at page 100, Orange juice & olive oil cake with pine nuts. It would please 'A' who has a penchant for sweet plain cakes for breakfast...and the cake tin was empty.

A spot of baking...a new recipe with quite a few processes...perfect for a rainy day...which it was...

 

Tessa Kiros uses lots of eggs, plain flour, baking powder, fresh orange juice and zest, vanilla extract, caster and light brown sugar, and pine nuts to make this cake.

The eggs are separated and whisked. All ingredients except the egg whites gradually combined, finally folding them in at the end. 

The batter is then divided into two small prepared baking tins and sprinkled with the pine nuts.  

I cut down on the sugar using 200g of unrefined golden caster sugar instead of 250g of caster plus 50g of light brown sugar, and had no complaints despite 'A' having a sweet tooth. I also substituted almond slivers for pine nuts as he's not keen on them.


An hour later a full tin...and the bonus is that the recipe makes two. So one for eating now and one to freeze.  


Or give away... 





The resulting cake is very moist thanks to the olive oil and orange juice. Tessa kiros says that it will keep for 4 to 5 days in a tin...and I said 'full tin' but as you can see neither apply in our house!  

Not for long any way...




16 comments:

  1. I do love an olive oil cake and I can imagine how earthy this tastes alongside the orange too, simply lovely... oh and by the way your photography is just stunning, as usual... so evocative!... and YES... the rain... talk about April showers!... yesterday I have NEVER seen so much rain come down so hard and fast... oy vey!... thank you so much for celebrating my second blogaversary with me x

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    1. Oh thanks Dom that's kind.

      I know...and we still have a hose pipe ban in force here as well as red alerts on rivers...talk about dichotomy! Fortunately I love rain specially when I'm in the kitchen baking!

      Here's to the next two blogging year...Have a good weekend.
      Debx

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  2. What a yummy looking cake. I find olive oil instead of some of the other oils, give a less dry taste. I like the idea of orange cake for the morning. Must make a good start to the day. I like doing two cakes at a time. I need to get the second one in the freezer as soon as it cools, otherwise it is likely to be started. Always thankful for an egg glut, as it gets my freezer full of cake, ready for unexpected guest dropping in.

    Maybe I should be doing some baking now!

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    1. It's a good feeling when the store cupboard/freezer is full of home produce. I think I'll make a habit of doing the same as you...it's funny how we always seem to get our visitors one after the other so it's good to be prepared.

      Have a good baking day Cheryl.

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  3. What a beautiful gift to share or kept. It looks scrumptious. I haven't figured out quite how to bake while we are living temporarily - not sure I want to restock a temporary cupboard.

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    1. I know it must be a problem...I suppose you will have to live from day to day or week to week and just enjoy the adventure...hope it's a good one.
      Deb

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  4. What a lovely gift Debby and I did enjoy all your photos :)

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  5. Now that sounds like a scrumptious cake. I've not baked with pine nuts, so trying to imagine how that might turn out - well I expect. I often use less sugar than recipes state and haven't had any bad results from so doing yet.

    I just saw a post about porridge on your site and was going to comment as I love porridge, but it all went pear shaped and the post disappeared!

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    1. Oh sorry about the porridge thing...that was my fault. I had a bit of a hiccup. I was working on my post for Breakfast club before going to work and accidentally published it instead of saving the post. I lost the images and most of the text and haven't had time to complete it until today. It wasn't really about porridge but there is a link in the first line to one I did write about porridge a while ago...I'm a bit porridge fan too...
      D

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  6. That combination of olive oil and orange sounds lovely. The almonds look really good on the cake, although personally I really like pine nuts in baking.

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    1. Thanks Phil. I've never baked with them although love them in salads...I must try them sometime...
      Deb

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  7. Great looking cake, I haven't tried olive oil cake but I will give it a go. Love the rain video. GG

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    1. It's keeping really well...very moist.

      Rains perfect for baking...
      Deb

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  8. Beautifully told story. I'm afraid that kind of rain is all too familiar if you live in Scotland!

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    1. Oh thanks Janice. I think we're getting your share at the moment too!...fortunately as I was born in the North it's something and I love rain...especially when I'm baking..
      Deb

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