Best Orange Cake in the World

This tasty little number was discovered by Astreja K. in the pages of that Canadian classic, the New Purity Cook Book, in the summer of 1976.  Over the years, She cut out a step or two in the workflow, tinkered a bit with the baking settings, and made the cake even more orangey.  This is the result.

Astreja K.'s Amazing Orange Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 large navel oranges with rough peels
• ¾ cup unsalted butter, preferably at room temperature (½ cup for cake, ¼ cup for icing)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour (unbleached is best)
• 2 level teaspoons baking powder
• Approximately 3 cups icing sugar

Before you start, lightly grease an 8" x 8" square pan and line with parchment paper.  (The greasing helps the paper stick to the sides of the pan.)

Rinse the oranges in hot water for a couple of minutes, giving them a good scrubbing and removing any blemishes and stickers.  Using a coarse grater, strip all the peel off both oranges into a large bowl but try to get just the outer layer and not too much of the white rind that's underneath the peel.  For a more interesting look, use one very orange orange and one yellowish-orange orange.  Put the oranges themselves aside for a few minutes.  Mix up the peel to muddle the colours together, then transfer a bit less than half to a small bowl.  (This is for the icing.)

Divide the butter into the two bowls:  ½ cup into the original large bowl, ¼ cup into the icing bowl.  Put the icing bowl aside for now.

Add the 1 cup of granulated sugar to the large bowl, and cream together with the butter and the orange peel.  Add the eggs (one at a time) and continue beating until thoroughly blended.

Cut the oranges in half and juice them into a large measuring cup.  The goal is to get about ⅔ cup of juice, but if you're not quite there you can also add some of the pulp from the oranges.   You can even add extra pulp, up to about 1 cup total of juice and pulp.

In yet another bowl, sift or stir together the 1½ cups of flour and 2 level teaspoons of baking powder.

At this point, you can get the oven ready.  Set the rack right in the middle, and preheat to 325°F.

Now you put it all together.  Add the flour and the juice to the butter/sugar/peel mixture:

• ⅓ of the flour; mix well
• ½ of the juice
• Another ⅓ of the flour
• Rest of the juice
• Rest of the flour

Mix well after every addition.  Don't worry if it looks like the orange juice is curdling; it'll be fine once everything's combined.

Put the mixture into the pan, making sure you get it into the corners.  (Use the back of a tablespoon to push it around the pan.)  Bake for about 35 minutes, then check for doneness by lightly pressing on the top of the cake. If the dent doesn't bounce back, the cake isn't quite done. Turn the oven down to 300°F and check it every 5 minutes till done.

Remove cake from oven and let sit for 10 more minutes, then invert onto a large cooling rack and peel off the parchment paper.

Let the cake cool completely! It'll take at least an hour and a half, so relax. Put up your feet and listen to a couple of CD's.

While you're waiting, you can finish the icing. Cream the butter and orange peel together.  Gradually add icing sugar to taste and consistency.  Do not add any milk or other liquids – Only butter, sugar and orange peel.  Apply to the cooled cake with a knife or an icing spatula, occasionally rinsing the tool in hot water if you opted for a thick, heavy icing.

This is a very tolerant cake, suitable for fridge, freezer or straight out to the table.  It freezes very well, icing and all, and if you put it in the fridge the icing takes on a nice fudge-like texture.

And since neither cake nor icing calls for any milk, you could probably create a vegan or lactose-free version by switching the butter for a suitable non-dairy margarine.

Brownies for the Busy Baker

Here's a recipe so easy that it makes you wonder why anyone would want to make 'em any other way. Not only is this one of the simplest brownie recipes out there, but it's one of the tastiest.  These are really great for Baking Emergencies such as "Ack!  I forgot to pick up cookies for the meeting!"

Saucepan Brownies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (half a pound) unsalted butter
• 1½ cups white sugar
• ¾ cup cocoa
• ¾  to 1 cup white flour (more flour = denser, firmer brownies)
• 3 eggs
• 2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract

(No baking powder or baking soda is required in this recipe.)

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Start by lightly greasing an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan and lining it with parchment paper that has also been lightly buttered.  (You can do this by greasing the pan, pressing the paper into place, then removing it and flipping it over.  This way, the paper sticks to the pan but the brownies come off the paper more easily.)  Set aside.

Next, start to melt the butter in a fairly deep saucepan, on medium-low heat.  While it's heating up, combine the sugar, cocoa and flour in a bowl.  As soon as the butter is melted, take it off the heat; add the bowlful of dry ingredients; and stir until smooth.

Now you can add the eggs one by one, stirring well after each one.

Finally, add the vanilla.  Give the batter one good stir, then scrape it out into the prepared baking pan.  The oven should be at temperature by now, so go for it.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes, then test by lightly pressing down on the top.  If the dent doesn't spring back up, bake for 5 more minutes and test again.

Let cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack and wait at least another 10 minutes before cutting into squares.  These should be moist on the outside, crunchy on top, and brownies through and through.

World Domination via Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy Equinox Eve! Today's treat was loosely adapted from The All New Purity Cookbook (ISBN 1-55285-13-4), a Canadian guide to cooking alchemy that was first published in 1967 and is not all that "All New" any more. Astreja K.'s copy of said tome is the 2001 printing (5th edition) and falls open at certain places.

This is one of those places.  You can tell by the break in the spine of the book, and the penciled-in notation "Use ungreased parchment paper," but mostly because of all the chocolate on the page.  Here goes:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• ½ cup unsalted butter (Original version used shortening)
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup lightly packed golden-brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla, but feel free to add a bit more
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (1 standard 6-ounce bag) chocolate chips (We suggest milk chocolate rather than semi-sweet)
• 1 cup chopped pecans (Original version used ½ cup chopped walnuts)

Allow the unsalted butter to soften at room temperature, or very quickly microwave it (10-15 seconds, tops).  Cream the butter together with both sugars until blended.  Add the egg and the vanilla.

After the wet ingredients are ready, it's a good time to preheat the oven to 325°F. (Original version says 350°F; don't do it! Keep the temperature down, and your cookie-making success is virtually guaranteed. They taste better, too.) Make sure the rack is roughly in the center of the oven, not too close to either element.

In another bowl, mix the flour and baking soda; then add the chocolate chips and the pecans.  Mix the dry ingredients well, then mix into the creamed butter mixture.

Put a sheet of ungreased parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Start forming the cookie dough into small balls, a bit more than an inch in diameter, until you've arranged 12 of them in a 3 x 4 array spaced about an inch apart.  Pop them into the oven and set a timer for 12 minutes.  Check them at the 12-minute mark; they may need 1 or 2 minutes more, depending on your oven.

When they're done, carefully pull the whole sheet of parchment paper onto a cooling rack, cookies and all.  If you have 2 cookie sheets, you can let each batch cool for a couple of minutes before you do this.  If you only have 1 cookie sheet, after you get the cookies safely onto the rack you can put on a fresh sheet of parchment paper and start rolling the next batch.

Makes 24-36 standard cookies, depending on the size of the dough balls.

Oh, fudge!

Greetings and salutations!  I'm Glori, your host.  I originally hail from the M42 nebula in the constellation of Orion.  Nowadays I can be found in donut shops, waiting at the head of the line at Humphrey Bogart film festivals, or shadowing the Springy Goddess, Astreja Odinsdóttir, just in case She needs assistance, advice, or a raspberry jambuster.

To set the tone of this blog, I thought we'd start with something sweet:

Peanut Butter Fudge

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 heaping tablespoons peanut butter
• 2-3 tablespoons corn syrup (white or golden)
• Enough milk to make a smooth batter (start with 1/2 cup and add more as required)
• Unsalted butter (a little bit to grease a plate, plus a tablespoon or two to add to the cooked mixture)
• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla (also to add near the end)

First things first:  Butter a heat-resistant plate of your choice, right up to the edges.  Set aside for now.

Mix the sugar, peanut butter, corn syrup and milk in a deep pot.  Cook at medium heat, stirring very occasionally, until it starts to do a slow, rolling boil.

At this point, let the mixture continue to cook as you go to the sink and fill it several inches deep with cold water.  Also fill a small bowl with cold water and bring it back to the stove.

Every minute or so, take a small amount of the mixture (half a teaspoon or less) and drizzle it into the cold water.  At first it'll just go splat and spread all over the bottom of the bowl.  Dump the bowl into the sink and refill it with fresh water.  Wait another minute and try again.  After about 5 or 6 minutes, the mixture should start to form into balls as it hits the water, and have a firmer texture.  This is the soft ball stage, where the sugar in the fudge starts holding together properly.

Stop stirring!  Turn off the burner, take the pot off the stove, and transfer it to the sink that you filled with water.  (Aim the tap somewhere else so that water doesn't drip into the fudge.)  Drop the remainder of the butter into the mixture, but don't stir; just let it melt on the top.

When the butter has finished melting. pour in the vanilla in  (and continue to refrain from stirring -- If you stir fudge when it's too hot, things frequently go Terribly Wrong and you end up with sugary, grainy fudge).

After a few minutes more, you'll be able to touch the bottom of the pot with your hand and it'll feel warm-ish rather than hot.  Now's your big chance!  Take the pot out of the sink, wipe away any water drips, and stir fast, trying to whip lots of air into the mixture.  As it starts to thicken, you'll have to play it by ear to know exactly when to pour it onto the plate.  Too soon and the fudge will be thin and flat (but still taste pretty good); too late, and you'll have to gouge it out of the pot.  Best to make your move when you feel that first bit of resistance that indicates the fudge is hardening; by the time you've finished transferring it, the last few spoonfuls will be almost solid.

Subdivide your fudge with a water-dampened kitchen knife as it hardens.  Serve immediately, or cover lightly with plastic for later consumption.