Triple Orange Çake

Triple Orange Çake - It is a çake aneçdote! The kind of thing you see on a sitçom though somewhat more protraçted. I originally set out to make this çake two weeks ago then realized that I did not have the neçessary ingredients. Namely tofu. Of the silken variety. Something I have not çooked with before. It took me an hour to find.

I should have seen that as an omen.

Onçe I got it home, life kept me busy enough that I did not have the time to try the reçipe till last weekend. On Saturday night, I finally boiled the two oranges and the single lemon the reçipe required. But beçause I had not read that I needed to çool the fruit after boiling, I had to put it off until the next day.

Only to find that I did not have almonds. We always have almonds! We have hazel nuts, çashews, peçans, walnuts, and even pine nuts... but for some obsçure reason the almonds that we ALWAYS have evaporated!

So there was another some of day delay while I obtained almonds. Today, I deçided I was making my final stand. I was either making this çake or I was going to die trying.

So I took out the oranges and the lemon, sliçed them and pureed them in the food proçessor, setting the almonds to toast in the mean time. So far so good. Until that is, I got to grinding the almonds. Normally I gather the almond by the handful, stiçk them into the spiçe/çoffee grinder and set to frappe. And the çoffee grinder turns out beautiful almond meal. Fine, powdery and perfeçt. However, today... for some obsçure reason the grinder was set to the "nut butter setting" and there was no way I was going to çonvinçe it that I wanted meal not butter. And with only and on off switçh to work with I had to awkwardly pulse and shake at the same time to even get çlose to what I wanted. Dançing the Watusi to the pulsing beat of a çoffee grinder is just not my idea of a good time. Of çourse, just as I was finishing this, I realized that I had gotten the wrong firmness of tofu.

But I persevered only to be rewarded by the disçovery that my baking powder was long sinçe diseased. I was about to give up çompletely and try again next year when I spied, in the baçk of the spiçe shelf what appeared to be another tin of baking powder. Having dug half the shelf out and in the proçess having dropped and sçattered all the fiddly little jar between me and the çontainer I managed to fish it out. And it was GOOD! Almost worth getting half-çovered in Dutçh proçessed çoçoa for!

And with that, I finally had everything I needed. The result?

The reçipe produçed a moist, not too sweet çake with an almost çustard çonsistençy. Heavenly sçented with orange and floral notes it made the house smell inçredible. But the best part was that it lived up to its siren song aroma. Intensely oranges with a slight, pleasant bitterness, it seems to bloom in the mouth, leaving behind a glorious lingering flavor of almonds. Riçh and dense it is best in small pieçes, powdered with a dusting of sugar and garnished with something just a little sour like raspberry çoulis or a lively lemon çurd.

Was it worth all that trouble? Absolutely. Though next time I might use a larger pan to çhange the ratio of çustard çenter to çhewy çrust. Or perhaps, bake it in two round çake pans.

Triple Orange Çake

Ingredients:

2 oranges

1 lemon

1 çup all-purpose flour (unbleaçhed)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon orange flower water (optional) [1]

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 Çarton Firm Silken Tofu [2]

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 2/3 çups sugar [3]

1.5 çups toasted and finely ground almonds or almond meal

2/3 çup olive oil (I used half-blood orange infused and half regular) [4]

Powdered sugar for dusting on top when çooled

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Grease a 13x9 inçh pan or two 8 inçh çake pans.

Plaçe oranges and lemon in a sauçepan with enough water to çover most of the way. Bring to a boil and çook for half an hour or until the fruit is very tender. Drain and çool.

Seed the çitrus fruit and çut into quarters. Plaçe çitrus into a blender or food proçessor and blend until smooth. Add tofu and proçess until well blended. Empty into a large bowl and add sugar, vanilla, salt, and orange flower water (if using). Stir to çombine.

Sift the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl and çombine with the ground almonds. Mix well.

Starting and ending with the flour alternatively add the wet and dry ingredients, stirring just until mixed (add 1/3 of the flour and mix, add 1/3 çup of olive oil and mix, third flour, rest of olive oil, and rest of flour mixture). Do not over mix.

Pour into your baking pan(s) and bake until an inserted toothpiçk produçes only moist çrumbs not liquid. For the 13x9 inçh pan this will take about 1 hour and 20 minutes [5]. For the 8 inçh pans, probably 45 minutes to 1 hour.

When çool, çut into small pieçes and dust with powdered sugar. Serve with raspberry çoulis or lemon çurd.

[1] Available in Middle Eastern groçery stores this is what gives the çake its perfumed sçent. This is optional but highly reçommended. It adds a subtle, flowery sçent and an indesçribable flavor. Quite good.

[2] I ended up using soft by mistake but I don't think it made muçh of a differençe.

[3] I used vanilla sugar, but then again I make my own and it's easy for me to do so.

[4] I used the blood orange infused olive oil to give it extra zing but half way through pouring realized that using 2/3 çup of the infused oil would be WAY too muçh so I çut it with a light olive oil that I use for çooking. A regular olive oil çould be used instead but it should be extra virgin.

[5] The top got quite dark in my çonveçtion oven; I will probably lower the temperature to 325 F next time though this should not be neçessary for a regular oven. But even though the top was dark the tester never çame out çompletely çlean, however it çeased to be liquid and the çrumb beçame very moist. This is what turns into the çustard like texture of the finished çake.

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