[HOME-MADE] ORANGE WALNUT OLIVE OIL CAKE

It's been really icy and rainy in Sydney... weather that makes you crave wintery and Christmas-y food (in a Northern hemisphere sense I guess. Christmas food here often means barbecue at the beach). I've also been trying to make lots of sweets and desserts myself, since I'm hoping to cut down store-bought food as much as I can, and really I can never get enough of baking anyway. It's so calming - your mind is not really thinking about much besides making sure you're getting the steps right, and it gives you this satisfying, pad-on-the-shoulder type feeling when you watch your ingredients change form, colour and volume, and come out of the oven as these perfect things that lift everyone's mood for the day.

So I reached out to one of my favourite any-day-of-the-week cake recipes again, from the Lottie + Doof blog that I so dearly admire. The orange and walnut mix takes me straight back to my childhood winters in Germany, and since I discovered baking with olive oil, it's become my preferred fat in cakes ("fat in cakes" sounds so classy by the way... not). It's a simple recipe yet delivers such a fulfilling product, and doesn't leave your kitchen as a bomb side after making it either. AND make sure you watch the egg and sugar mixture turn all creamy, almost custard-y; makes me all giddy thinking back. It's not the greatest looking fella but but no one will really think about it once they have their first bite.

So if you have a spare half hour with nothing to do one day, need an emergency cake that needs to impress (whenever that might be) or just simply want to warm your home and fill it with Christmas-y smells, please don't hesitate.

Orange walnut olive oil cake (slightly adapted from Lottie + Doof)

• 1 1/2 cups walnuts
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (roughly 2 oranges)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated orange peel (roughly the peel of the two oranges used for the juice)
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 180C. Butter a 9-inch springform pan (I use oil out of laziness) and line with baking paper.

Grind walnuts in food processor until roughly ground, resembling breadcrumbs. Combine ground walnuts, flour and baking powder, and set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until frothy, around 2 minutes. Slowly add the sugar, and beat until thick, creamy, pale yellow, around 4 minutes. Slowly add nut-flour mixture, then orange juice, peel and olive oil, mixing until just combined (if your bowl gets too full, use a spatula combine all in order to avoid splashes).

Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean, about 50 to 60 minutes. Let cake cool in pan before transferring to a platter (it doesn't need to cool completely, but while warm it needs to be transferred carefully as it breaks more easily); dust with icing sugar before serving (optional), or just dig in straight away like myself.

[BAREFOOT] SUNSHINE CAKE

I've been baking disturbingly a lot recently. Valentine's Day, lunch party at relatives', second attempts because the first batch didn't turn out as expected, and simply because I was bored and didn't feel like doing anything else. I know the last one does sound quite disturbing, but don't worry, there are days that I don't feel like doing anything but staying in bed and watch movies just like everyone else too.

I usually look for recipes for cakes or other pastries and desserts that are easy to make, look fairly simple and rustic, and preferably have some sort of fresh fruit in them. I don't like icing, don't like cupcakes, don't like food colouring. Too cutesy, and I always worry I might get some sort of food poisoning when food is neon green or baby pink.

I felt like poppy seed cake the other night (yes I tend to bake at night and beat eggs for around 8 minutes, sorry neighbours), and found this amazing recipe for lemon poppy seed cake on Smitten Kitchen. Being a smartass I already bought my ingredients before I found a recipe and therefore only had oranges, but it still worked absolutely fine.

I also thinly sliced up one orange to put on top of the cake - gives it quite a festive look, and balances well with the rich cake. For those who are interested in making it, I used a regular springform pan (the cake will become hollow in the middle but who cares when the cake is so good), zest of two oranges and a whole pack of poppy seed (which would be around 1 1/4 cups). I don't mind a lot of poppy seeds at all - I kinda miss German poppy seed cakes, which are pretty much black. But anyway, this cake is absolutely lovely, probably best enjoyed with a cup of tea, and I think it tastes nicer when it's cold too. Polly's friend Marsha definitely liked it because she had it twice, and it was pretty impressive to watch Nilly have her belated birthday cake last night - I don't think she shared much of it, and the quarter of the cake was gone before she knew.

I read this article last week that says baking is like therapy. So true! You have to pay attention to all the steps and also don't want to waste time running around the kitchen to find shit, so you have to be fast and organised. But it's a really calm kind of concentration and gives you enough time to think while not getting too involved with it. I loved watching the texture of the 8 egg yolks and one whole egg for this cake change during the 8 minutes of beating. Whatever my problems were, it was pretty satisfying to see the end result, which really was "pale yellow and very fluffy", almost like whipped cream.


I guess some would really find me disturbing now.

[BAREFOOT] BIRTHDAY CAKE UPGRADE

Currently on repeat:

*Super Bass (Nicki Minaj cover) - Drew Tabor

So it was Benny's birthday dinner on Monday, and I thought making a cake for him would be nice (for both him and me, as I haven't baked anything for ages. Actually that was a lie, I made clafoutis the other week). My inner Jamie Oliver (haha) awoke when I saw this ad and I knew it had to be a layered chocolate cake this year - last year I got him a layered cake from the 24/7 bakery on the Corso, so I've managed to create a tradition too.

(and the ad is for my camera too - it was just meant to be, you know.)

I found this recipe for a very lovely chocolate sponge that rose tall enough for three layers (I think my spring form is 25cm), and was firm enough to cut up without any problems - if I had messed up the base that night I would've probably had no choice but to go to the bakery for the same cake as last year again. Poached some cherries in shiraz, sugar and allspice berries, melted some dark chocolate (actually I put melted chocolate into the sponge as well, instead of cocoa!) and whipped a hell lotta cream, and this was the result. By the way, speaking of whipped cream - Chuck, I think you must have thrown out one of the beaters of my egg mixer after whipping cream for pancakes on my birthday. Bit time consuming to beat stuff with only one beater, but thank god I still got one, else I would've cried.

Kay gotta go finish my assignments. Ugh no! *stomping with my feet*