Resuming A Long Abandoned Quest for the Orange Cake Grail
Lateish in 2015, I embarked on Quest For the Holy Grail—of orange cakes! “Which,” I pondered, “was the Best and Greatest?” The only way, I thought, was to make/bake the recipes and find out…
So in my mind, I had done a whole sequence of posts on this topic before being distracted by Other Life Matters, including the imminent release of Daughter Of Blood, as I recall. In the end, therefore, there were only ever two posts:
The Quest For The Holy Grail; and
The Quest For The Holy Grail Continues
However, the quest has remained ongoing, lurking somewhere in the background of both life and mind, and recently I made not one but two different orange cakes. (Although I kind of forgot the photo ritual with the second…)
The common ingredient in both cakes—beside the orange of course π —is rosemary. The first is Orange and Rosemary Syrup Cake, the recipe gleaned from an Australian Gourmet Traveller of October 2001. Definitely going back aways but the recipe is very good. It’s from a sequence called HeavenScent by Leanne Kitchen. You can see some more of her food under her profile on Delicious.
Anyway, as mentioned, this cake is Really Very Good, in fact the Taste Team believe it may be the best, although they’re undecided because the first-made Orange and Almond Cake is also Very Popular…
I should also note that the original recipe was for cakes plural, with the recipe being divided into large muffin tins. But I made it as a single cake and adjusted the cooking time accordingly.
The second cake is a far more recent recipe, a Rhubarb, (Orange) Marmalade & Rosemary Cake from the Cuisine of July 2018 (No. 189.) The recipe was part of a preview feature for a book titled How To Eat A Peach by Diana Henry.
It qualifies as an orange cake imho because the marmalade used was sweet orange and the recipe includes orange zest. Plus it tastes orange-y. (I rest my case.) The recipe is very rich, but I do not say that like it is a bad thing: no, indeed! π
At any rate, by the time I had remembered “Photos!” the Taste Team had demolished most of it. I believe you may draw your own conclusions from that fact; also that one of them was still talking about it a week later. π
I hope the quest may continue with more orange cakes to come. To which end, I believe there may be an Orange Poppyseed Cake in the latest NZ House & Garden…
My baking bug has been in full swing recently. I love the King Arthur Flour web site to tempt me into new techniques and yummy treats. This weekend I tried a braided lemon sweet bread, which turned out rather like a giant danish because the braiding didn’t work quite right. Guess I will just have to try again!
I recently made an apple and lemon cake recipe that did not turn out, despite double checking that I followed every step correctly — the birds seemed to have no complaints, though, including the “robber baron” seagulls that swooped in to make sure nothing at all got left.
And if one tries new things one has to to expect there’ll be a few “not quites” and even “completely wrongs” in the mix, or so I tell myself. π
Love that description of seagulls!
π
What a yummy blog post! I’ll try out some of those recipes. I recently made a very moreish chocolate orange cake that was surprisingly moist and easy to make. It was a vegan cake for my vegan daughter.
That sounds like a great cake, Marion. I have a vegan chocolate cake recipe, but no orange component alas.
In terms of the recipe, here’s a link to the Orange, Rhubarb and Rosemary cake: https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/cuisine/20180701/282651803168612
I’m still waiting to hear about the others. π