a blood orange & olive oil cake with much to overcome
a blood orange & olive oil cake with much to overcome
I would say that today was the worst failure I have experienced thus far in this project.
If I had any sense I wouldn’t have baked today. I knew as I began that I wasn’t in the mood to exert appropriate effort. For example, I’m writing this post on my phone because I don’t feel like going downstairs to get my computer. Also for example, the above very blurry shot of my poorly made cake is the only photo I took of the actually-baked cake, and I didn’t realize I had screwed the photography pooch so badly until this moment, a moment at which I’m absolutely not going to go back to the kitchen to reshoot.
But I was anxious about doing all the recipes I committed to this week, because I already picked next week’s recipes (see end of this post!), and I ended up taking Friday off because Dot got a blanket for Christmas and has been very cuddly and COULD YOU SAY NO TO THIS FACE?
So, I blundered ahead, ignorant to my impending dismay, which would be entirely of my own creation. I knew my knife wasn’t sharp enough to cut the Cara Cara oranges that were the closest to blood oranges I could find in the store (I will NEVER enter an establishment and say aloud “do you all sell blood oranges”) into paper thin rounds like Claire’s, but I was too lazy to cut the rinds off or even try very hard anyway. I misread the instructions, distracted by watching Harry Potter on TV, and thought I was supposed to beat the (flax) eggs (the flax substitution probably didn’t help things at all but I could never say it was primarily to blame for what has happened; the guilt rests solely with me) directly into the flour mixture when in fact I was supposed to beat the eggs and sugar (which I also drastically, unscientifically reduced) together first before adding to the flour (I’m pretty sure this is like the most basic part of cake making so it’s kind of astounding I didn’t manage to follow that part of the instructions specifically). Once I realized the lumpy, flax-and-floury misfortune I had wrought, I basically gave up and haphazardly beat everything together at once for like ten minutes, poured the batter over my too-thick orange slices, and stuck it in the oven. Too late did I realize that there were gaps between my spring form container and its bottom, so the caramel meant to form on top of the oranges leaked out and was useless. I removed the cake too early because my tester came out clean and I didn’t realize how much further cooking the cake could have used, until it was already cut.
I would like to formally apologize to Claire Saffitz and this recipe for turning its beautiful concept into a product that is basically underdone cake with hot orange on top. My mother, a notably kind person, insists she thinks it is tasty, but I know that aside from the crusty bits of the outer rings of this cake that hint at what greatness it might have achieved with a more loving and attentive hand, this cake tastes bad. I will not be sharing this cake with anyone else and it is almost certainly going to be the first baked good that isn’t finished within 24 hours.
The holidays have clearly thrown me off my groove, but I am confident things will get back on track, and I’m not shocked today turned out as it did because my heart wasn’t in it! In the name of respecting these wonderful ingredients and the craft of baking, I will from here on out choose putting a recipe off until a future week over baking no matter what.
Hopefully that won’t be an issue though, because I’m very excited about next week’s recipes!!
apple tart (using leftover pastry from palmiers)
pull apart sour cream and chive rolls
spelt croissants
pear chestnut cake
salty nut tart w/ rosemary
SORRY CLAIRE AND EVERYONE! SEE U TOMORROW!
EDIT: ugh I keep forgetting to put the “Where I would serve it” sections so full disclosure I went back and added them to all previous posts on Thursday, and was going to make a note of that in today’s email version but forgot for reasons that may be evident. Please feel free to revisit old posts to up my views (heh heh :D) and see where I would serve previous recipes! I would not serve today’s blood orange and olive oil cake anywhere.
I think you should schedule a Redemption week where, at some point, if you've amassed enough cooking failures, you dedicate a week to trying them again! Also, I messed up my own olive oil cake like 2 weeks ago, so I sympathize.
Dot is TOO precious! I love the cast of characters you've introduced. (And I bet Joe would have wanted a slice of underdone cake with hot orange on top; honestly, I would like a slice of that.) Some days are shit, plain and simple. But even amid the shit, you managed to make a cake! I think that's pretty darn impressive.
OK, maybe I'm with your mom on the savory treat train, but the pull apart rolls and salty nut tart sound especially divine, and I am so excited for this week!
P.S. I made the vegan cannoli, because I love you, but good god am I a bad baker. Just truly awful. I tested three different filling recipes: one almond + coconut cream variant; another using Tofutti vegan ricotta; and a third (the winner!) made from a mixture of firm silken tofu, vegan cream cheese, powdered sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, orange zest, a little maple syrup, and a few limp blackberries to try to mask the tofu taste. (Clearly, this was a misguided and self-directed process. I impulsively added random ingredients in a blender until I was nauseous and tired of tasting sweet tofu.) I had way too much leftover cannoli filling after timidly frying up only 12 mini pastry taco shells, so I threw the extra filling into a vegan pound cake recipe with chocolate chips. Overall, both were--fine! I wish I had Claire's tips and tricks to shepherd me through (instead of the internet and my poor intuition). Woof, OK, I'm going to press pause on the frenetic baking for the moment, but I would have NEVER rolled my own dough (or eaten so much sugary tofu?) without your loving encouragement. It was fun; I feel oddly accomplished! Sending love.