whole blood orange rosemary olive oil cake

whole blood orange rosemary olive oil cake

5 Aug 2019

I'm working on a little something for next year's Passover week which uses whole oranges in the cake. When I saw Hetty Mckinnon's recipe for an orange and rosemary olive oil cake I wondered if I could make the cake using that technique. 



I've been waiting for blood oranges to come into season and when they appeared in the fruit shop a week ago I bought 4 and set to work. I've discovered you can cook the oranges in the microwave in just a few minutes rather than boiling them for an hour. Once the puree is made it keeps well in the freezer.



I tweaked the recipe a little to fit into my new purchase, a small copper bundt tin from Williams Sonoma. Isn't it a beauty?



I also added an extra egg because my cake batter needed it. I guess orange puree is less juicy than orange juice. Hetty's cake is topped with a dusting of icing sugar but I just love the look of blood orange icing so I made some. Rosemary flowers are in bloom so I finished the cake with a few of the mauve flowers.



Here's the recipe for you which makes a small bundt cake. If you'd like to make a large bundt cake, just double all the ingredients and bake for the same length of time. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 



Whole Blood Orange Olive Oil and Rosemary Cake inspired by Hetty Mckinnon
Ingredients
1 large blood orange or 2 small blood oranges
1 cup self-raising flour 
pinch salt
2 large eggs, beaten 
½ cup caster sugar 
2 tsp chopped rosemary leaves
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil or a neutral tasting oil
½ cup Greek yoghurt

Method
Prick the oranges in a few places. Place into a microwave safe bowl with a tablespoon water. Lightly cover and microwave on high for 4-6 minutes. Every orange is different so start checking at 4 minutes. When the oranges are soft allow to cool and when cool, cut into quarters removing any seeds. Chop roughly then blitz the oranges and any juices in a food processor until pureed. You could also boil the oranges until soft if you don’t have a microwave. Measure out 125g of the orange puree and freeze any leftover puree.

Grease and flour a small bundt tin. Place the tin in the fridge until required. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Sift the flour and salt together into a small bowl. Set aside.

Mix the eggs, sugar and rosemary together in a bowl. Add the oil and mix until well combined. Add the flour, orange puree and yoghurt to the egg mixture in thirds; stir to combine. When just combined, pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 45–50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then invert the cake onto the rack to cool completely. When cool, dust with icing sugar or you can top with some blood orange icing.

Icing
25g unsalted butter, melted
½ cup sifted icing sugar
3 tsp blood orange juice
Rosemary leaves/flowers

Method
In a small bowl combine the melted butter with the icing sugar and mix until smooth. Add enough blood orange juice to form a thick icing. Drizzle the icing over the top of the cooled cake decorating with a few rosemary leaves and flowers if desired. Allow to set before serving.



The cake unmoulded like a dream and the cake was delicious as well so I had a good day in the kitchen.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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plate 2 plate - sour cherry chocolate almond biscotti

plate 2 plate - sour cherry chocolate almond biscotti

15 Dec 2014

Welcome to this year's edition of The 5 days of Christmas. This year's theme is cherries and chocolate and today I'm also bringing you the second Plate to Plate column. A few months ago, Juliana and I decided that we were going to bake and style a Christmas themed recipe for our second Plate 2 plate blog post. Juliana suggested a few things and in the end we chose a Williams Sonoma chocolate cherry almond biscotti recipe. 






Now I've only made biscotti once before and they weren't a great success, so I was keen to try another recipe. One of the key ingredients in this recipe, sour cherries, are a bit hard to find in Sydney but I eventually found them in the local health food store. As it's Christmas, I couldn't help myself and added some chocolate chips to the biscotti mix just to make the cookies a little more festive. Here's my take on the biscotti double baking process. 


Here's Juliana's.

I got myself into a little bit of trouble. I don't know if Australian flour is less absorbent than US flour or if my eggs were a bit larger but the biscotti dough came out very, very sticky. I was covered in biscotti dough; the bench top was covered in biscotti dough and I could barely scrape it out from the bowl. 

I kept adding flour until the dough was a bit more manageable but I was concerned all that extra flour would affect the final result.

Juliana also had problems with the recipe, though her problem was a bit different from mine. Here's her story.

Here's the recipe for you.
Ingredients

1¾ cups plain flour

1 cup granulated sugar

½ cup Dutch process cocoa powder, sifted

¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

¾ cup dark chocolate chips

¾ cup dried sour cherries 

¾ cup toasted blanched almonds, coarsely chopped

3 whole eggs, plus 1 egg white

1 tsp. vanilla extract

 
Method

Position racks in the upper third and lower third of an oven and preheat to 325°F/170°C. Line 2 baking sheets, preferably insulated sheets, with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda until well mixed. Add the chocolate chips, the cherries and almonds and toss with your hands to distribute them evenly. 

In another bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, egg white and vanilla extract. Pour into the dry ingredients. Using a fork, mix together the dry and wet ingredients, taking care to work all the bits of dry ingredients into the dough. This will take about 5 minutes. The dough will be dense and sticky. Divide the dough in half.

Place a piece of plastic wrap 18 inches long on the countertop. Transfer half of the dough to the plastic wrap. Lightly moisten your hands with cold water to prevent the dough from sticking to them, then shape the dough into a flattened log 12 inches long by 2 1/2 inches wide by 1 inch high. Lifting the plastic wrap and cradling the dough, flip the dough onto the centre of one of the prepared baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining dough, flipping it onto the second prepared baking sheet. 

Bake the logs until they are dry to the touch and firm in the centre when pressed with your fingers, about 30 minutes. They will spread considerably and may crack slightly on top. Transfer to wire racks and let the logs cool on the pans for 30 minutes. The logs will still be slightly warm to the touch. Leave the oven on.

Carefully transfer the logs to a cutting board and set the parchment-lined pans aside. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs crosswise on the diagonal into slices 1/2 inch wide. Arrange the slices, cut side down, on the lined baking sheets, placing them close together but not touching. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and, using tongs or a spatula, turn the biscotti. Continue to bake until dry and crisp, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer the biscotti to wire racks to cool completely. Store the biscotti in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks. Makes 4 dozen cookies.

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma, Essentials of Healthful Cooking, by Mary Abbott Hess, Dana Jacobi & Marie Simmons (Oxmoor House, 2003).


Here's how Juliana styled her biscotti.





Here's how I styled mine.




The lovely gold garland is from here.

Juliana's look so festive, don't they?



These taste great straight from the oven when the chocolate chips are still all melty but actually taste even better when they're a few days old. I always dunk my biscuits (I can't help myself) and these are perfect for dunking as they're quite sturdy. I've made these biscotti  twice now and the second time I made them in my stand mixer using the dough hook. I increased the flour to 2 cups and was more prudent adding the eggs and had no trouble the second time around.






The cookies all packed ready to distribute to my neighbours for Christmas.

See you all again tomorrow with some more Christmas Baking!

Jillian

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peppermint bark - 5 days of candies - xmas 2013

peppermint bark - 5 days of candies - xmas 2013

18 Dec 2013

I put out a call to my friends for Christmas candy ideas and an old school friend who'd spent last Christmas in the States, suggested I make chocolate bark. Now I love after dinner mints and I admit I may have a box or two stashed away in my cupboard for a rainy day. Chocolate and mint go so well together and as Williams Sonoma has recently opened a store in Sydney, I couldn't go past recreating their peppermint bark. Now I've never seen their peppermint bark before nor tasted it so I relied solely on the internet for help. 

The recipe I used is adapted from here and it's more an assembly job than cooking. There's a bit of melting and some crushing but seriously that's as stressful as it gets. Good chocolate is important here so please don't skimp.



Here's the recipe for you.
Peppermint Bark
Ingredients

4 oz pack candy canes

250 g good quality dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

250 g good quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped

Peppermint extract

Instructions

Line the base and sides of a lamington tin with baking paper.

Place candy canes into a plastic bag and use a rolling pin or the back of a heavy knife to crush into pieces, about ¼ inch long. Separate the larger pieces by shaking the candy through a sieve. The cook gets to eat the crumbs.

Dark Chocolate Layer

Place the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts. Stir frequently until the chocolate has just melted; do not overheat as the chocolate can burn easily. When the chocolate has melted, add ½ tsp of peppermint extract and stir until thoroughly combined. Pour the melted chocolate into the prepared pan, and spread evenly over the bottom of the pan with an offset spatula. Place the pan in the fridge and refrigerate until the chocolate is firm, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the refrigerator while melting the white chocolate.

White Chocolate Layer

Place the white chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 15 second bursts at 50% power and stir frequently until the chocolate has just melted; white chocolate chocolate melts more quickly than dark chocolate. When the white chocolate has just melted, add ¼ tsp of peppermint extract and stir thoroughly. Pour the white chocolate directly over the semisweet chocolate layer. Use an offset spatula to quickly spread the white chocolate evenly. While the white chocolate layer is still soft sprinkle the larger candy cane pieces evenly over the top. Use the back of a large spoon to lightly press the candies into the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to rest in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes until just set. When the chocolate has set, remove from the pan before breaking into irregular pieces or use a sharp kitchen knife to cut into rectangular pieces about 2 by 4 inches. Store the bark in an airtight container.

P.S. Don't tell any of my friends this but they'll be getting some peppermint bark from me this Christmas.

I'll be back tomorrow with day 4 of Christmas Candy Week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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