Blood Orange Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting

Yesterday was my last day at the office for a while. So this was a goodbye cake for my co-workers. I wanted to make an upside down cake, but I was also dreaming of a layer cake with fluffy frosting. So I did both, rolled into one, because who says you can't have your upside-down cake and eat your layer cake too?

For the last 3 years, I've been a lucky lady to get to wake up every morning and go to work with the most amazing team of caring, committed people who are trying to make this world a better place. Working for a non-profit environmental organization is incredibly satisfying but also incredibly exhausting. People work long hours because they care about their work, and as with most jobs, it can be difficult to find the time for one's own projects. That's why I feel especially lucky to be going on a 7-month leave of absence to finish my master's thesis which has been on hold for years. While I'm at it, I'll also be doing an organic farming apprenticeship, learning how to grow delicious veggies and tend to farm animals. Something I've been wanting to do for only, oh, um, FOREVER. So while I'm sad I won't get to see the marvelous people I work with every day, I have to admit that this morning, the first day of my leave, I woke up feeling like a free woman!! Yeeeehaw! I spent the morning taking pictures of the maple tree outside my bedroom window, something I've been wanting to do ever since it started flowering but... couldn't find the time. Ah, life is good.

But back to this cake…  initially it was meant to be a pear upside down cake since I needed to use up a big jar of pears I canned a couple falls ago, but it turns out they had started going bad, and it was late in the evening, stores were closed... so I used the blood oranges I had kicking around on the counter. And then I remembered this gorgeous tart recipe I saw recently on Journey Kitchen that combines salted caramel and blood oranges. So that's how the caramel frosting came into the picture. No video for you this week sadly, but lots of photos instead. And the cake, well I didn't even actually taste it myself, but I can tell you that it disappeared within minutes and there were many smiling faces.

Once last thing. I should tell you about a fortuitous mistake I made with the recipe that gave it a neat twist. When I made the caramel for the frosting, the first batch turned out way too hard so that when I beat it into the frosting, it turned into a bunch of little hard caramel candy pieces, which at first I was upset about but then decided was actually quite lovely. Candy pieces in the frosting! So the recipe below doesn't include this mistake, but you could make it happen if you really wanted to (just leave out the cream when you make the caramel, add a bit of orange juice instead and cook it a bit longer than 6 minutes)...but if you do this, make sure you also make a batch of soft caramel to mix into the frosting.

UPSIDE DOWN BLOOD ORANGE LAYER CAKE WITH SALTED CARAMEL FROSTING

I adapted Martha Stewart's pear upside down cake, substituting blood oranges for pears, and adding orange rind to the batter, but if you have a favourite upside down cake recipe, you can use that. I found this cake recipe to be a wee bit less fluffy than I had hoped (maybe it's because I didn't have cream of tartar, can any bakers out there tell me?) but on the plus side, it made it easy to cut each piece in half for frosting. I doubled the recipe to make 2 cakes instead of one, which I cut into 4 and frosted between the layers. Here is my adapted version...

Cake topping:

6 tablespoons of butter

3/4 packed brown sugar (I only had white so I used that instead)

6 ripe blood oranges, thinly sliced (I used 2 for the top of the cake and 4 for the layers)

Cake batter:

3 cups flour

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

4 large eggs, separated

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar (I didn't have any so I left it out)

2 tsp. grated blood orange rind

Salted Caramel Frosting (adapted from chow.com):

1/2 cup white sugar

4 tablespoons water

1/3 cup whipping cream (I didn't have cream so I used a bit of orange juice instead, maybe that's why my caramel turned hard :-)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cup butter

1 tsp. sea salt

2 cups icing sugar

Make the topping: Melt the butter over low heat adding brown sugar until dissolved. Remove from heat and cool. Cut a piece of parchment paper in a circle to line the bottom of one of the cake pans. Butter the paper generously. Peel and slice 2 blood oranges, arranging them at the bottom of the cake pan. Pour the sugar mixture on top.

Make the batter: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix flour and baking powder. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add vanilla and egg yolks, one at a time beating to combine. Alternating with the milk, gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and mix at low-speed just until flour is incorporated (do not overmix). In a large bowl, beat the reserved egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff but not dry. Gently fold the eggs into the batter. Pour half of the batter over the oranges. Pour the other half of the batter into a second buttered cake pan (with no oranges). Bake both cakes until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Immediately invert the upside down cake onto a cooling rack. Once the cakes are completely cooled, carefully cut both across so that you end up with 4 layers.

Make the frosting: Bring sugar and water to a boil over medium heat. Cook until dark amber, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat and add the cream and vanilla stirring until smooth. Allow to cool fully (30 minutes). If your caramel is too hard, you can reheat it and add a bit of water, mix thoroughly and re-cool it. In a large bowl, combine butter and salt and beat at medium speed, adding icing sugar and beating until a soft frosting is reached. Add the caramel and beat until fluffy.


Frost between each layer, adding thinly sliced blood oranges. Enjoy!

Maple Syrup Pie

OK folks. Before we get this maple syrup party started, I'm burning to tell you this (which I just found out today)... My blog is shortlisted for a Saveur Magazine best food blog award! More specifically, this video about my mom's Baba au Rhum, which I made this past Christmas. So you know what this means right? I'm going to ask you a favour. I need your votes, since the award is given for the highest number of online votes. So click here to do the deed. (You'll need to register with Saveur and be signed-in in order to vote, but I promise, it only takes about 15 seconds to do). Merci, thank-you, danke schon, grazie, shokran jezillan, you are the best! As a token of thanks for indulging me in this act of shameless self-promotion, I give you...  MAPLE SYRUP PIE.

A few weeks ago, I went to Québec to make maple syrup with my dad. 

I wrote an article about it which you can read in the spring edition of Edible Toronto Magazine. In the article, I share my 3 favourite maple syrup recipes: eggs poached in maple syrup, my stepdad's maple mousse, and my personal pièce de résistance... maple syrup pie! Oh yes. Maple. Syrup. Pie. Otherwise known as tarte à l'érable. It's a Québec tradition involving butter, eggs, cream, and maple syrup. And how can anyone resist THAT? There are many different versions of this pie out there, and over the years, after baking several of these, I do believe I have finally nailed the exact ratios for that irresistible gooey pecan pie-like texture that makes me lose my mind just a little bit. Plus, my recipe uses no sugar, only maple syrup! So it's kind of, sort of healthy. At least I like to tell myself this. 

It's very easy to make. The hardest part is letting it cool and set for a full 3 hours before slicing!

Here is a video I made to accompany my article and to capture my dad's enthusiasm for collecting maple sap and making his own syrup. He gets as wired as a kid on Christmas day. It's pretty freaking adorable. And I couldn't resist slipping in a little timelapse at the end, showing my own enthusiasm for MAPLE. SYRUP. PIE. (!!!)

MAPLE SYRUP PIE
(This recipe differs slightly from the one shown in the video... yes folks, this one is the new and improved version!)

All-butter pie pastry:

1 1/4 cup organic unbleached flour (or white whole wheat pastry flour)
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
About 1/4 cup ice water
1/2 tsp salt (use 1/4 tsp if your butter is already salted)

Pie filling:

1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup
6 Tbsp. butter

1/2 cup whipping (35%) cream

1 1/2 Tbsp. unbleached white flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

To make the pastry, cut the butter into the flour until it's the size of lentils or small peas. Add the ice water and mix gently with a fork until you can gather a small amount in your hand it comes together. Add water if needed, 1 Tbsp at a time. Do not overmix the dough. Gather the dough into a ball. Flatten the ball into a disc. Wrap it up in waxed paper and place it in the fridge for about 1 hour. Roll out the dough and place it in a 9-inch pie plate, crimping the edges nicely. Place in the refrigerator until the filling is ready.

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the maple syrup just to a boil. Cook the maple syrup at a gentle bubble, reducing the heat if necessary, for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter until melted. Stir in the cream. Transfer about 1/2-cup of the mixture to a small bowl; whisk in the flour and salt and then whisk this back into the mixture in the saucepan. Allow to cool slightly. Beat the eggs well and whisk them into the mixture in the saucepan. Pour the filling into the pie shell. Bake in a 325 to 350º oven until the centre is golden brown and bubbly, and firm when lightly touched, about 45 minutes. Now, please don't hate me but you MUST allow this pie to cool completely to room temperature and set for at least 3 hours, for clean slicing. Serve at room temperature.

Minty Grapefruit Coleslaw

We have mint!

It's March going on June here in Toronto (25 degrees today!). And in our back garden I found a wee bit of mint poking its sleepy head out of the ground. I pounced on those little sprigs to make this variation on a salad I have been loving these days. It's inspired by The Big Carrot's grapefruit coleslaw. They put cilantro in their version which is equally delicious. But something about the grapefruit & mint combo is oh so refreshing and perfect for a warm spring day.




Minty Grapefruit Coleslaw
1 small cabbage
2 green onions
A dozen (or more) cherry tomatoes
2 grapefruits
1 small bunch of mint
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Finely chop the cabbage. Slice up the green onions, tomatoes, 1 1/2 grapefruit, and mint. Squeeze the juice from one half of a grapefruit into a bowl. Add olive oil and salt and pepper to make a dressing to your taste (I like a fair bit of salt and pepper in this one). Toss together and voila!