{"id":869,"date":"2010-02-14T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-14T09:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitemporaryblog.wordpress.com\/2010\/02\/14\/we-ate-this-cake"},"modified":"2016-02-15T14:57:31","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T19:57:31","slug":"we-ate-this-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangette.net\/2010\/02\/we-ate-this-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"We ate this cake"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a million years ago, by which I mean last Thanksgiving, I mentioned on Twitter<\/a> that my cousins had made an olive oil cake for our mothers\u2019 birthday dinner. Our mothers are identical twins, born in the third week of November, which means that our family\u2019s Thanksgiving comes with an extra bonus meal: The Twins\u2019 Birthday. Anyway, I mentioned this cake, and someone – maybe one of you reading today? – asked if I might share the recipe. I said that I would do my best to get it from my cousin Katie<\/a>, its keeper, which I did, and after bringing it home and accidentally burying it in a stack of papers on my desk for three months, which I\u2019m told promotes ripening, or something, I am elated to bring it to you today. It\u2019s a wonderful cake.<\/p>\n

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\nI first tasted it last May at another family birthday meal, this time in honor of Katie. It was her 30th birthday, and in our family, 30th birthdays require a lot of festivities – mine involved a surprise weekend in San Francisco with Brandon, my cousins, The Twins, and friends, ending with a baggage handler stealing my mother\u2019s gift out of my suitcase and me crying myself to sleep; memories<\/span>! – so a bunch of us decided to plan a whopper for Katie. She\u2019s usually a planner of surprises and does not receive them very easily, but I think we did alright. Nine of us took her to a family friend\u2019s home in the very small town of Boonville, California, for a weekend of eating and wine-tasting. One night, we dressed up and went to the Boonville Hotel<\/a> for dinner, and that\u2019s where we ate this cake.<\/p>\n

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We had called ahead to request a special dessert, because one member of our party is dairy intolerant, and so the chef made a recipe from his mother, an orange, almond, and olive oil cake. As birthday cakes go, it was unassuming, even rustic: a single layer, pale gold and coarse-crumbed, dusted with powdered sugar. But its flavor was something else: big, gutsy, rich with toasted nuts, and saturated, absolutely saturated, with the perfume of citrus. We liked it so much that my aunt asked for the recipe. We made it last November, and then I made it again a few days ago, for you. (But I forgot the powdered sugar on top. I\u2019m so sorry. Please use your imagination.)<\/p>\n

In the days since I rescued the recipe from its untimely burial on my desk, I\u2019ve done a little looking around, and it seems that it may have originally been published in The Boston Globe<\/span>, although I can\u2019t find the date or the article. There\u2019s also a similar cake in the book Breakfast Lunch Tea<\/a>, by Rose Carrarini. Wherever it comes from, the concept is weird and brilliant: you start with whole citrus fruits – the original recipe calls for two small oranges and one lemon, but I prefer the flavor when I use one small to medium orange and one lemon – and you boil them in water for thirty minutes, until they\u2019re soft. Then you remove the seeds from the orange, if there are any, and discard the pulp from the lemon, and you whizz the rest – the lemon rind and the entire orange – in the food processor. Not only does this process yield a coarse paste that infuses the cake with both moisture and flavor, but it also makes your house smell like you\u2019ve spent tons of money on designer air freshener. You mix this paste into a base of eggs and sugar and flour and leavening, and then you stir in ground toasted almonds and olive oil, which add even more<\/span> fragrance and flavor, if that\u2019s even possible, and aside from the baking part, you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n

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\nI\u2019d never had a cake like this one before, either in flavor or in method, and though I don\u2019t sit around and keep score on this kind of stuff, it might be the most sophisticated everyday cake I know. Privately, I think of it as a marmalade cake, and that\u2019s what I\u2019ve decided to call it. I know I\u2019m supposed to call it an orange, almond, and olive oil cake, but then everyone gets excited about the olive oil angle, and honestly, if you\u2019re looking for an olive oil cake, this is not its purest incarnation. This cake is about citrus, all-out, the kick and spice and gentle bitterness you find in a jar of good marmalade. Its ingredients lean toward Italy, but in my mind, it\u2019s more like something Jeeves might bring, what ho!<\/a>, with your afternoon tea. Either way, I should tell you, too, that it keeps amazingly. It even tastes better<\/span> with age. You could steal slices from it for an entire week, and I strongly advise you to do so.<\/p>\n\n

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Recipe<\/div>\n

Marmalade Cake<\/h2>\n

Adapted from the Boonville Hotel<\/h3> \n \n <\/header>\n\n
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