The most exciting oranges, late winter blood variety, are made even more exciting by turning them into a delicious, tender and moist cake.
Blood or blush?
There was a brief period around 2015 I think, when supermarkets were trying to shy away from ‘blood’. Too blunt, too intense, possibly triggering? And so they went about calling these beauties ‘blush oranges’. Suggesting a modest, gentle, retiring food experience.
But that would never do! They ARE intense, and if you slice one in half it’s not a gentle pink blush that’s revealed: it’s blood crimson!
That’s of course if the crimson hue does appear, more on it below. And I was pleased to see in more recent years that the blood has returned.
Blood oranges don’t have to be blood red
They arrive in late winter, and as with everything, they are the best grown on the same continent as where you live. In Europe it means fruit from Spain and Italy; in America you will mostly encounter Californian and Floridian fruit.
The best varieties available in the UK are the Italian Tarocco Ippolito and the Spanish Sanguinelli. But if you see them in the shops and think they are either not ripe or plainly fake, don’t lose heart. The skin isn’t always dark crimson: in fact the nicest tasting ones will not stand out from an otherwise orange crowd.
Once sliced, you’ll see the crimson insides – or you won’t. Because also the interior doesn’t have to be super dark bloody to still have a wonderful taste, slightly raspberry and very, very sweet.
Blood orange zest, juice and flesh
The flavour of this cake is made up of the entire fruit, perhaps excluding the pith.
Zest grated of all three is worth rubbing into sugar in a bowl, as per Melissa Clark’s advice from the original recipe, if only for the exquisite olfactory experience whilst doing that.
The juice combined with buttermilk or yoghurt (no, it won’t split or curdle even if it should look like it’s going to before stirring) contributes to the cake wet ingredients.
And the orange segments, cut out of the membranes and pith (not terribly hard) added to the batter at the end provide tiny pockets of juice in the baked crumb. If you think segmenting an orange is not worth the hassle, you can skip it but you’ll still have two zested oranges left begging not to be wasted, so you might as well give it a try.
Cake batter
Once the oranges are zested, juiced and segmented (aka supremed), it’s plain sailing. Orange juice topped up with buttermilk is added to the orange-rubbed sugar, followed by eggs. Then the dry ingredients are whisked in, finished by the olive oil added little by little. You might think it’s too much oil but keep faith – it will turn out delicious.
With those little pieces of orange folded into the batter and the batter poured into a well-greased loaf tin, off to the oven it goes for about an hour – or up till a clean skewer test.
And you may well feel disappointed on cutting the cake that it’s lost its crimson hue and looks like an ordinary orange cake, only speckled like with saffron, but it will taste wonderfully and differently flavoured, I assure you.
Variations
Because obviously, outside blood orange season you can bake this excellent cake too, using plain oranges.
You can also use tangerines or clementines, though they don’t zest as well, or lemon – in which case this will be a twin sister of my lemon and olive oil cake which is as tasty.
More blood orange recipes
Blood orange and poppy seed muffins recipe, easy and quick, makes a lovely dessert or post-brunch or lunch sweet. You can also add chocolate chips to the blood orange muffin mix.
Mixed citrus and radicchio salad is bursting with vibrant flavours. Peeled and sliced blood and regular oranges, grapefruits, and zesty radicchio, this bitter sweet symphony is perfect for a light lunch or as a colourful side at dinner. Also, rich in vitamins and antioxidants!
Use blood or plain oranges for the raw fennel and orange salad with its own dressing of orange juice plus a little oil. Fennel is one of the healthiest foods, and delicious raw but it needs to be sliced thinly.
More orange flavour cakes
Orange flavoured ciambella with dark chocolate glaze is Italian ring-shaped breakfast cake. This one is made without butter but with olive oil; serve it for an indulgent breakfast or for dessert.
Macaroon is a dessicated coconut based confection and not the same as almond macaron. This recipe is for macaroon cake flavoured with orange zest, with orange icing for filling and topping.
Dan Lepard’s orange and walnut loaf cake with cinnamon and fresh ginger is a wonderful combination of flavours. One saucepan, a loaf tin and zest from five oranges!